Sarah Palin's 'blood libel' reference sparks new controversy

By
Felicia Sonmez and Rachel Weiner

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Former Alaska governor Sarah Palin (R) released a statement Wednesday morning denouncing efforts to blame her for Saturday's Tucson shooting rampage. But her use of the controversial phrase "blood libel," which refers to anti-Semitic falsehoods dating back hundreds of years, inflamed her critics and drew condemnation from some Jewish groups.

While acknowledging that Palin has a right to defend herself against unwarranted attacks, the Anti-Defamation League, a leading Jewish organization, said in a statement, "We wish that Palin had used another phrase, instead of one so fraught with pain in Jewish history."

J Street, a liberal Jewish organization, said, "When Governor Palin learns that many Jews are pained by and take offense at the use of the term, we are sure that she will choose to retract her comment, apologize and make a less inflammatory choice of words."

In a lengthy statement posted on her Facebook page, Palin said, "Like many, I've spent the past few days reflecting on what happened and praying for guidance.

"After this shocking tragedy, I listened at first puzzled, then with concern, and now with sadness, to the irresponsible statements from people attempting to apportion blame for this terrible event."

Palin called efforts to attribute blame for the shooting "reprehensible," saying that "especially within hours of a tragedy unfolding, journalists and pundits should not manufacture a blood libel that serves only to incite the very hatred and violence they purport to condemn."

The phrase "blood libel" refers to a centuries-old anti-Semitic slander: that Jews use the blood of Christian children for religious rituals. The false accusation has been used as an excuse for persecution and murder of Jews from the Middle Ages to the Holocaust and modern times. Palin's use of the phrase only makes her role in this tragedy -- involving a Jewish congresswoman -- more controversial.

"I would have advised against using it -- the term is historically unique and refers specifically to false charges of ritual murder," said Noam Neusner, a former speechwriter for President George W. Bush and the son of a famed Talmudic scholar. "While Ms. Palin has a legitimate gripe against her liberal critics, who were wrong to associate the Tucson shooter with her politics, she is using a term that simply does not apply. She could have simply used the word 'libel' and she would have been fine."

Hank Sheinkopf, a Democratic consultant, said, "The comparison is stupid. Jews and rational people will find it objectionable. This will forever link her to the events in Tucson. It deepens the hole she's already dug for herself. ... It's absolutely inappropriate."

The phrase "blood libel" was "used completely inappropriately," said Simon Greer, President and CEO of Jewish Funds for Justice, who argued that there's a pattern among conservative pundits of appropriating the Jewish experience. Greer had his own tussle with Fox News personality Glenn Beck, who said Greer's
href="http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/onfaith/guestvoices/2010/04/mr_beck_-_you_are.html">position on social justice "leads to death camps ... A Jew, of all people, should know that."

"I don't think its just an error or an oversight or a mild insensitivity," Greer said of Palin's word choice. "It does seem like part of a pattern of appropriating this experience."

But Harvard Law School Professor Alan Dershowitz defended Palin, saying he had used the term himself to defend Israel. "There is nothing improper and certainly nothing anti-Semitic in Sarah Palin using the term to characterize what she reasonably believes are false accusations that her words or images may have caused a mentally disturbed individual to kill and maim. "

Without naming him, Palin alluded to Rep. Robert Brady's (D-Pa.) plan to propose legislation that would make it a federal crime to use language or images that could be interpreted as inciting violence toward members of Congress or federal officials, saying the legislation "would criminalize speech [Brady] found offensive."

"It is in the hour when our values are challenged that we must remain resolved to protect those values," Palin said. "Recall how the events of 9-11 challenged our values and we had to fight the tendency to trade our freedoms for perceived security. And so it is today."

Also releasing a statement early Wednesday was former Nevada Assemblywoman Sharron Angle (R), who has come under criticism for stating during her unsuccessful bid to unseat Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) that supports should seek "Second Amendment remedies."

Angle, who is currently in California caring for her 88-year-old father, condemned Saturday's attack, calling it "a horrifying and senseless tragedy" that "should be condemned as a single act of violence, by a single unstable individual."

"Expanding the context of the attack to blame and to infringe upon the people's Constitutional liberties is both dangerous and ignorant," she said. "The irresponsible assignment of blame to me, Sarah Palin or the TEA Party movement by commentators and elected officials puts all who gather to redress grievances in danger."

Angle added that political finger-pointing is "an audience-rating game and contradicts the facts as they are known - that the shooter was obsessed with his twisted plans long before the TEA Party movement began."

The Facebook post was Palin's most extensive public statement since Saturday's tragedy. She posted a short condolence note on her site the day of the shootings, and Beck read some of his correspondence with Palin on his radio show in the days after the tragedy.

A Palin aide defended the former governor in an appearance on Alaska radio Sunday, saying that there was "nothing irresponsible" about the images of crosshairs used in a map of the 20 congressional districts targeted by Palin's PAC.

Jews haven't been the only group in all humanity to have been persecuted by another group for whatever reason. All groups at some time, at some place, have been by another. They have no personal ownership to to the hardships one group of humans place on a second group simply because of differences.

Palin was using a metaphor to describe the unwarranted and uncalled for hatred that has been spewed towards her. Considering all that she has weathered and continues to weather at the hands at liberal progressives and a mass media for being a Christian, Pro-Life, giving birth to a special needs child, Conservative, Republican...(ie. not a Progressive Liberal Feminist) I personally wonder how she muddles through.

Quote Word by Word : "Journalist and Pundits should not manufacture a "Blood Libel" Serves only to incite the very hatred and violence they proport_Sara Palin" TRANSLATION : Media, Journalists whom are punidts persons of greak learning should not manufacture a "Sacrife/Blood Libel" that serves only to expound the vigerously and spireted debates that exposed to the nation politically incited violence from the City Meetings to National News therefore repeating time and time again "to proport " this news to Again and Again incite the very hatred and violence "As to support a cause "proport" that cause Only "As the Enquirer Would Do" To Sell Headlines..??? "Be Safe" Words have Consanquinity . Keep It Simple and Direct to the point. And not just to sell Headlines. Its time to heal.

"Blood libel" is not a copyrighted term, nor trademarked by Jewish axegrinders. Anyone can use it to refer to accusations in which one party is fallaciously blamed for another's death.

Sounds like "blood libel" is exactly the term Palin should be using. She's been libeled with the calumny that the blood of six innocents is on her hands.

Clearly for many haters, Ms. Palin can do no right. But fair-minded people must surely see by now that Jared Loughner was in no way influenced by any political movement or commentator, and certainly not by Sarah Palin.

Arguments to the contrary are simply wishful thinking by those who'd really love to see Palin snuffed out -- and who prematurely leaped at the chance to use a sordid blood libel like this to do it.

It is past time that all of us took a deep breath, calmed down, and considered thinking before we speak. Let's agree to disagree in a civil manner, and consider discussing issues based on their own merits, rather than resorting to name calling, distortions, half truths, untruths, not to mention collectively changing our mindsets to avoid defaulting to ad hominem attacks that include the stereotypical phrases such as "left wing", right wing", and "wing nuts".

Why do we use the terms "liberal" or "conservative" to demonize those we disagree with?

And let's try thoughtful criticism of other's assertions, unfounded or not, without falling into the same pit as those we criticize.

With all respect, that's quite, laughably sanctimonious, friend. This is a blog. There is absolutely nothing about "agree to disagree in a civil manner" that I recognize in the scope of American or even Western politics. Look at Prime Minister's Questions in parliamentary systems. Pretending that was the case at any place or time, especially during the earliest days of this nation, is willful fantasy.

I'd much prefer that Palin had the guts to keep those crosshairs on her web site: I'd be able to point to them as proof-positive that she's categorically unfit to lead anything in this nation.

I understand your instinct: reason disappears when volume levels rise. But the alternative, proposed--unfortunately by a few of my liberal brethren--is legally silencing people and limiting speech. When citizens can be prosecuted for violating some "norm" for political speech (e.g., "targeting" an opponents position on health care), I will recognize that we will have become very close to an Orwellian hellhole.

Not for me, thank you very much. Bring on the shouters! They kill no one.

The righties are going nuts with their research/agit-prop organizations, trying to gin up a charge of hypocrisy on the left for being so concerned about Palin's use of the term "blood libel." For instance, they're screaming, "Hey, Eugene Robinson used the term a couple of years ago. What gives?"

As always with righties, they're trying to downplay context.

Robinson's statement was: "[the Pittsburgh hoax was] the blood libel against black men concerning the defilement of the flower of Caucasian womanhood. It’s been with us for hundreds of years and, apparently, is still with us.” Robinson was referring to the pathetic McCain volunteer, Ashley Todd, who tried to pretend in 2008 that some Obama supporters had carved the letter "B" into her face. It quickly revealed itself to be a charade.

In this context, Robinson is being scrupulously accurate in using this term: the accusation (the "blood libel") was that black men were attacking white conservative women, literally, and carving them up.

Conservatives have used the term most recently at a further abstraction. Reynolds, in the WSJ this week, said "So as the usual talking heads begin their "have you no decency?" routine aimed at talk radio and Republican politicians, perhaps we should turn the question around. Where is the decency in blood libel?"

In a very belated response, here's what NRO's Jonah Goldberg wrote in response to Reynolds: "I should have said this a few days ago, when my friend Glenn Reynolds introduced the term to this debate. But I think that the use of this particular term in this context isn't ideal. Historically, the term is almost invariably used to describe anti-Semitic myths about how Jews use blood -- usually from children -- in their rituals. I agree entirely with Glenn's, and now Palin's, larger point. But I'm not sure either of them intended to redefine the phrase, or that they should have. [National Review Online, 1/12/11]"

Ultimately, Palin's use is the most egregious and pathetic of all. She said, "Vigorous and spirited public debates during elections are among our most cherished traditions. And after the election, we shake hands and get back to work, and often both sides find common ground back in D.C. and elsewhere. If you don't like a person's vision for the country, you're free to debate that vision. If you don't like their ideas, you're free to propose better ideas. But, especially within hours of a tragedy unfolding, journalists and pundits should not manufacture a blood libel that serves only to incite the very hatred and violence they purport to condemn. That is reprehensible."

Never mind that she's oblivious to the fact that she has been at the forefront of doing the opposite of what she proclaims we should do as a polity; the really appalling thing is she's clearly referring first and foremost to HERSELF as the VICTIM of the supposed, metaphorical "blood libel."

Sarah, trust me, you're not the victim here. The victims are those who were killed and injured, and their families. This is a moment that requires leadership. It's a moment when good leaders reflect, and put their animus aside, try to bring people together, not go on the attack and sink to a whole new level. Seems to me that instead of reflecting or admitting any responsibility for contributing to a vitriolic climate (that's not to say what you did made the shooter do what he did), the righties want to make excuses and ratchet it up a couple more notches. Nice.

For Sarah Palin to pretend that her over-the-top speeches involving war and guns do not promote violence is absurd.

She, her staff, and consultants have spent countless sums of money and hours honing her message to win votes and spur people to action. They are experts at manipulating the feelings and beliefs of audiences.

I'm sure they pretend that her vitriolic rhetoric is simply good old American politics, but deep down inside she and her staff know that their words and message has the potential to spur some mentally challenged individuals to kill.

They also know full well the ubiquitous existence of guns designed specifically to kill people is wrong. Palin does not have the integrity or courage to talk straight about such guns as the Glock 19 with its handy 30 bullet clip, which allows one to kill many people in minutes. They cannot give up the heady power gained from telling gun lovers what they want to hear: you are simply being a red blooded patriot and good American by keeping a gun on your person at all times.

The citizens of Arizona probably have more guns per capita than any other state. No one was available to kill Jared Loughner before his insane shooting spree in a Safeway in Tucson. In fact, the ubiquity of guns in Tucson did not seem to be the slightest deterrent to Loughner.

If all of these left wing news outlets keep bringing Sarah Palin up, she will stay 'relevant'. If you want her to go away, STOP TALKING ABOUT HER.

* * * * * * * *

Actually she does a pretty good job of putting herself out there. She does not want to go away and she has the tools she needs to stay relevant - money, tv show, devoted fans. Don't blame the media for her longevity. As a non-conservative I'm happy to see her in the news. If she runs in 2012 Obama wins. The math is already very clear on this. Obama could pray to Mecca on the east lawn, pledge allegiance to Kenya, and change his name to Karl Marx and still beat Palin.

Did the media blame MSNBC for the deaths caused by the DC sniper? He was a a left-winger.

Posted by: Frishoo
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Really? How did you know this? Or is this just another off the cuff asinine remark from defensive wingnuts? You guys are hitting on all cylinders today. And since MSNBC is a media outlet, why would the media blame it, as it would be blaming itself? Never mind, don't answer that - I am sure something is on Faux News that you would rather watch...

Ms. Palin once again demonstrates her incredible lack of maturity, lack of leadership, and total narcissism. I'm not blaming Sarah for what happened. Clearly this young man is seriously mentally ill. However, many of us have been begging the right to tone down the vitriolic rhetoric, most of which is in fact coming from the right. Enough with the violent gun imagery, enough of the vilifying, enough of the fomenting anger, paranoia, and fear. We're trying to say words and images DO matter. There are plenty of unhinged people in our society, fortunately most aren't as sick as this young man, but they still consume the toxic fumes of a vitriolic political climate. Hate speech can fuel people's delusions, their paranoia, and propensity to act out. People in positions of power and influence should be setting good examples, not throwing fuel on the fire. As a person with significant influence, Sarah could have risen to the occasion, done something magnanimous as David Frum noted , but no, she sunk that much lower. Instead of saying something nice, reflective, apologetic, remorseful, unifying, gracious, etc. she as usual gets totally defensive and goes on the attack, refusing EVER to take responsibility for anything she says or does. She's as nasty, polarizing, and ignorant as ever.

Ms. Palin once again demonstrates her incredible lack of maturity, lack of leadership, and total narcissism. I'm not blaming Sarah for what happened. Clearly this young man is seriously mentally ill. However, many of us have been begging the right to tone down the vitriolic rhetoric, most of which is in fact coming from the right. Enough with the violent gun imagery, enough of the vilifying, enough of the fomenting anger, paranoia, and fear. We're trying to say words and images DO matter. There are plenty of unhinged people in our society, fortunately most aren't as sick as this young man, but they still consume the toxic fumes of a vitriolic political climate. Hate speech can fuel people's delusions, their paranoia, and propensity to act out. People in positions of power and influence should be setting good examples, not throwing fuel on the fire. As a person with significant influence, Sarah could have risen to the occasion, done something magnanimous as David Frum noted , but no, she sunk that much lower. Instead of saying something nice, reflective, apologetic, remorseful, unifying, gracious, etc. she as usual gets totally defensive and goes on the attack, refusing EVER to take responsibility for anything she says or does. She's as nasty, polarizing, and ignorant as ever.

In an alternative universe where Sarah Palin possessed both good judgment and sobriety, she would have simply said at the outset of this:

"Like the rest of America, we are shocked and heartbroken by the murder of six innocent people in Arizona yesterday. While we know of no evidence that the unstable shooter was in any way motivated by the crosshairs we had on our website, if he somehow was, then we deeply regret that. While versions of this sort of martial language has been common in political campaigns, we will refrain from using it in the future. We all can argue our political points of view without resort to violent allusions."

Instead she got defensive, defiant, and suddenly is the persecuted Jew of the Middle Ages. She did not have to take it to this point. She really didn't.

It looks like Palin has put self destructive cross hairs over her own mouth, with or without application of lipstick. I'm wondering if she will refudiate her insensitive remarks about blood libel. I suspect she will move on to another group slur as she certainly doesn't know when to stop.

Pallin' around with terrorists, birtherism, death panels, and now blood libel... Palin just needs to stop the name calling and try to stretch herself intellectually. Stop playing the victim. Didn't she criticize American Muslims as a whole, though innocent, and state that they should not build a prayer and cultural center near Ground Zero, even though they had had a presence there for years before 9/11. Yet she held them guilty just because they were Muslim, as if no real American who was Muslim died in the World Trade Center too. She's a hypocrite.

And a little sound bite to get all the whining computer geeks busy and focused. I almost want to cry over the tragedy felt by many that Sarah Palin used again the WORDs. Soon no one will be allowed to say anything that might displease some special interest groups who use every possibility to get into spotlight with Sarah's name as a ladder. But then, how would they support their cause. That would be nice, right? Be glad ( as You really are) that Sarah said what she said. Vanity Fair.

Knowing the reaction will be predictable, better ask why Palin used ,as it appears, politincorrect word. I am absolutely sure she knew the reaction and all this whining vanity (like of those who eat chicken but can not kill a moose) will again increase the numbers of her supporters.

She threw the bite, so many got caught.Wise move, Sarah. Very refreshing to hear voice of normalcy in the society corrupted by people earning money on pretending to be victimized by virtually everything.

The main reason the Marxist Democrats hate Governor Palin is that she is youthful, photogenic, articulate, intelligent, pro-freedom, pro-free enterprise and female. This is an outrageous combination; just too gifted and too well self-actualized for the perpetually jealous Marxist Democrats to deal with.

Ever wonder why there are so many Marxist Democrats in Hollywood? They all share the same narcissistic, insecure philosophy, i.e., "It's not enough that I succeed, all others must fail."

Thus the character, of lack thereof, of these Marxist Democrats continues to be on display for all - and especially all independent voters - to see.

The world is watching, Marxist Democrats.
Keep those mindless, personal smears coming.

I can't wait to hear the wailing and gnashing of teeth come November 2012.
Music to my ears.

There are now fewer Democrats in Congress than at any time since 1948. If you are less than 62 years old, this is the first time in your lifetime that there have been less than 200 Democrats in the House of Representatives.

This didn’t happen because of anything the Republicans did. It happened because two months ago, independent voters in this country soundly rejected the Marxist Democrats’ politics of envy, atrophy and redistribution. Now these independent voters are getting to see a steady stream of confirmation of just why they made the right decision.

No, it’s not Governor Palin or Rush Limbaugh that are digging themselves into a hole.

The Marxist Democrats crassly attempted to exploit this tragedy for political advantage even before any facts were known. And now that it has been determined that Jared Loughner was a Marxist who did not watch TV news or listen to talk radio and therefore certainly was not influenced by Fox News, Governor Palin, Rush Limbaugh or any other pundit or commentator, the left is once again exposed for the devious, unprincipled, Godless Marxists that they are.

Hey, why don't we all agree to ignore Ms. Palin and focus on the dead and wounded. Let's talk about something meaningful like common sense gun control and mental health treatment reform.

This guy Loughner was mentally ill and somehow got his hands not only a gun but a gun with high capacity clip that allowed him to apparently squeeze off in the neighborhood of 30 shots before having to reload. THOSE are the important issues here, not how the tragedy may tangentially effect Ms. Palin.

It's incredible to me that Republicans love to show hatred for critics and censorship unless they are the ones doing the critical censoring. Heads up all conservative newspaper editors because this is also on your shoulders. That includes Palin and her cross-hairs no matter how she wants to deflect responsibility for anything under the Sun. Or TEA Party, Limbaugh, Hannity, O'Reilly, Coulter, FOXNews, WSJ, etc. What expectations did they have from their rantings towards the public and their fan base constituents? Just ratings? If that's the case they deserve to be put under a piece pod by the FCC. They might as well dispense guns and ammunition since their complete irresponsible inuendos and subliminal messages they give every single day of their programs have freaks like Loughner wiggin out.

It seems like the term is appropriate. False accusations used to foster the persecution of a political figure through a made up narrative used to help keep the anger focused on conservatives. You libs are doing the literal thing, but the concept fits perfectly, which is why the left is getting so riled up.

Sarah Palin is a distraction from the real story here: the legions of wackos Congress has unleashed on the general public. This country used to put mentally unstable people in hospitals, like St. Elizabeth's, but those days passed because lawmakers thought they had better things to do with the money. In the wake of Virginia Tech and Tucson, we need to realize that some people are better kept under protection, for the good of the general population. From what I read, this Congress isn't going to go that way, but is considering more security for lawmakers. That's great. Protect lawmakers but leave the rest of us to the ravages of the insane.

She just doesn't get it, and that's what is so tragic about all this. People are sick of their leaders using violence in their every day speaking voice - "reload", "take 'em out", "blood libel", on and on. They just can't keep their mouths shut, even on a day of a memorial. Sheesh, how DUMB can she be???

The outright mindless prejudice against Gov. Palin is astounding. I can't say I'm a strong Palin supporter but the people using this tragedy to attack her really are adding to the negative atmosphere. There is not one shred of evidence tying her to these shootings. However, there IS evidence that left wing propaganda like the Zeitgeist and Loose Change documentaries did influence him. Yet, almost complete silence about that. The main stream media's behavior in this has shocked even me. The only explanation for this is that most in the mainstream media really do think that conservative views are the reason for this tragedy - absent any facts and in fact in the face of facts directly contrary to that. It is almost the textbook case of prejudice and irrationality.

It is past time that all of us took a deep breath, calmed down, and considered thinking before we speak. Let's agree to disagree in a civil manner, and consider discussing issues based on their own merits, rather than resorting to name calling, distortions, half truths, untruths, not to mention collectively changing our mindsets to avoid defaulting to ad hominem attacks that include the stereotypical phrases such as "left wing", right wing", and "wing nuts".

Why do we use the terms "liberal" or "conservative" to demonize those we disagree with?

And let's try thoughtful criticism of other's assertions, unfounded or not, without falling into the same pit as those we criticize.

The right is desperate to deflect responsibility for this tragedy. The funny thing is no one said they were responsible! All people are saying is tone down the rhetoric because it might contribute to this sort of thing.

The right though got it's panties in a twist from the moment this tragedy happened. ALL they've been doing is saying "don't blame us" when no one is. It must be from a guilty conscience. That at least shows these guys have consciences.

Gov. Steve Beshear (D) – "“When I mention that Democrats are problem solvers, I can think of only one Republican who can be a problem solver — that is Vice President Dick Cheney if he would just take George on a hunting trip".

Chris Matthews - fantasizing on air about seeing Rush Limbaugh shot in the head.

Sandra Bernhard - Sarah Palin should be GANG RAPED if she comes to New York.

Craig Kilborn - superimposing the words "Snipers Wanted" over the face George Bush.

Jesse Jackson after the 1994 GOP victory - "[h]ate and hurt are on a roll in America. If what was happening here was happening in South Africa, it'd be called racist apartheid. If it was happening in Germany, we'd call it Nazism. And in Italy, we'd call it fascism. Here we call it conservatism."

Julianne Malveaux expressed her opinion of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas on PBS - "...You know, I hope his wife feeds him lots of eggs and butter and he dies early, like many black men do, of heart disease. Well, that's how I feel. He is an absolutely reprehensible person."

Nina Totenberg, National Public Radio and ABC News reporter, commenting on Senator Jesse Helms - "I think he ought to be worried about what's going on in the Good Lord's mind, because if there is retributive justice, he'll get AIDS from a transfusion, or one of his grandchildren will get it."

Why is the media making this about Palin? They need to admit they fabricated the narrative with no evidence against her. Then get back to reporting the actual facts. This is media driven, not Palin driven.

Gov. Steve Beshear (D) – "“When I mention that Democrats are problem solvers, I can think of only one Republican who can be a problem solver — that is Vice President Dick Cheney if he would just take George on a hunting trip".

Chris Matthews - fantasizing on air about seeing Rush Limbaugh shot in the head.

Sandra Bernhard - Sarah Palin should be GANG RAPED if she comes to New York.

Craig Kilborn - superimposing the words "Snipers Wanted" over the face George Bush.

Jesse Jackson after the 1994 GOP victory - "[h]ate and hurt are on a roll in America. If what was happening here was happening in South Africa, it'd be called racist apartheid. If it was happening in Germany, we'd call it Nazism. And in Italy, we'd call it fascism. Here we call it conservatism."

Julianne Malveaux expressed her opinion of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas on PBS - "...You know, I hope his wife feeds him lots of eggs and butter and he dies early, like many black men do, of heart disease. Well, that's how I feel. He is an absolutely reprehensible person."

Nina Totenberg, National Public Radio and ABC News reporter, commenting on Senator Jesse Helms - "I think he ought to be worried about what's going on in the Good Lord's mind, because if there is retributive justice, he'll get AIDS from a transfusion, or one of his grandchildren will get it."

The outright mindless prejudice against Gov. Palin is astounding. I can't say I'm a strong Palin supporter but the people using this tragedy to attack her really are adding to the negative atmosphere. There is not one shred of evidence tying her to these shootings. However, there IS evidence that left wing propaganda like the Zeitgeist and Loose Change documentaries did influence him. Yet, almost complete silence about that. The main stream media's behavior in this has shocked even me. The only explanation for this is that most in the mainstream media really do think that conservative views are the reason for this tragedy - absent any facts and in fact in the face of facts directly contrary to that. It is almost the textbook case of prejudice and irrationality.

The guy was a pot head. And Cali(fornia) wants to make it legal. A paranioa inducing drug.. OOOHHHH the left is saying its because easy acess to guns, but fact is, he had a drug riddled mind and paranoia. The left better be very careful pointing the finger here. He is a product of THEIR policies.
_________

Thereafter, we see evidence of the expected reaction. See WPL22, scsmits, johnhunsaker4, and grantmh.

It is disgusting that some continue to use the tragedy in Tucson to fan the flames of political hate.

I have read of it elsewhere; yet, I too am somewhat amazed that more attention has not been given to the excessive use of drugs by the deranged gunman. Though it is obvious that the suggestion of the same would not be politically popular with a far-too-large segment of the population, could drugs and alcohol actually have been a major factor in leading to the delusional thought disorder?
The drug culture is not only a symptom but a major cause of many of the most serious problems afflicting our society - - - whether related to health, crime, or the general waste of resources.

The outright mindless prejudice against Gov. Palin is astounding. I can't say I'm a strong Palin supporter but the people using this tragedy to attack her really are adding to the negative atmosphere. There is not one shred of evidence tying her to these shootings. However, there IS evidence that left wing propaganda like the Zeitgeist and Loose Change documentaries did influence him. Yet, almost complete silence about that. The main stream media's behavior in this has shocked even me. The only explanation for this is that most in the mainstream media really do think that conservative views are the reason for this tragedy - absent any facts and in fact in the face of facts directly contrary to that. It is almost the textbook case of prejudice and irrationality.

The guy was a pot head. And Cali(fornia) wants to make it legal. A paranioa inducing drug.. OOOHHHH the left is saying its because easy acess to guns, but fact is, he had a drug riddled mind and paranoia. The left better be very careful pointing the finger here. He is a product of THEIR policies.
_________

Thereafter, we see evidence of the expected reaction. See WPL22, scsmits, johnhunsaker4, and grantmh.

It is disgusting that some continue to use the tragedy in Tucson to fan the flames of political hate.

I have read of it elsewhere; yet, I too am somewhat amazed that more attention has not been given to the excessive use of drugs by the deranged gunman. Though it is obvious that the suggestion of the same would not be politically popular with a far-too-large segment of the population, could drugs and alcohol actually have been a major factor in leading to the delusional thought disorder?
The drug culture is not only a symptom but a major cause of many of the most serious problems afflicting our society - - - whether related to health, crime, or the general waste of resources.

If Sarah Palin herself does not believe she contributes to the atmosphere of violence, why is the crosshairs graphic gone from her PAC site? Why not stand by your convictions and your assertion that the crosshairs were merely 'surveyor's symbols'? Huh? Why?

Mrs. Palin said: "Acts of monstrous criminality stand on their own. They begin and end with the criminals who commit them...."

Hmm. Then why she did she make all that fuss over New York City's community center "mosque"?

This speech is a classic example of her terminal lack of self-awareness. Not to mention her extreme lack of logic in arguing that words don't influence people, right before she accuses the media of using words to incite hatred against her.

Herself. Really? All Palin has to do is breathe and the lefty nutbags come streaming out of the dark moist recesses like the cockroaches they are. I guess you delusional clowns finally figured out the the "It's Bush's fault" shelf life has finally expired. Now you dopes have your new bete noire. I do look forward to her continuing to sound off as it's so entertaining to hear the whines and squeals of the lib whackjobs on these blogs and in the media. Please keep putting your ignorance and irrationality on display. Only bodes well for the GOP in 2012. Keep up the good work, morons.

Gov. Steve Beshear (D) – "“When I mention that Democrats are problem solvers, I can think of only one Republican who can be a problem solver — that is Vice President Dick Cheney if he would just take George on a hunting trip".

Chris Matthews - fantasizing on air about seeing Rush Limbaugh shot in the head.

Sandra Bernhard - Sarah Palin should be GANG RAPED if she comes to New York.

Craig Kilborn - superimposing the words "Snipers Wanted" over the face George Bush.

Jesse Jackson after the 1994 GOP victory - "[h]ate and hurt are on a roll in America. If what was happening here was happening in South Africa, it'd be called racist apartheid. If it was happening in Germany, we'd call it Nazism. And in Italy, we'd call it fascism. Here we call it conservatism."

Julianne Malveaux expressed her opinion of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas on PBS - "...You know, I hope his wife feeds him lots of eggs and butter and he dies early, like many black men do, of heart disease. Well, that's how I feel. He is an absolutely reprehensible person."

Nina Totenberg, National Public Radio and ABC News reporter, commenting on Senator Jesse Helms - "I think he ought to be worried about what's going on in the Good Lord's mind, because if there is retributive justice, he'll get AIDS from a transfusion, or one of his grandchildren will get it."

Blood libel describes a horrible lie: the belief that Jews kill Christian children in order to make ritual use of their blood. The libel is nearly a thousand years old, and has been used by anti-Semites through the centuries to justify pogroms, massacres and the destruction of Jews.

For Palin to use that phrase in a complaint about the media, in the aftermath of a mass murder where the primary target was a Jewish woman, is, to put it mildly, the act of a stupid, self-absorbed drama queen.

Several were discussing this on another thread here. It's a fool's errand, of course, to parse any statement from Palin; however, "blood libel" is a term she's borrowing from the recent conservative blogosphere. Marcus refers to Reynolds' use of it in the WSJ the other day; but it's been popping up with some regularity prior to the Saturday shooting. See article in TPM.

Since this term is not in frequent use in non-Jewish circles in America (we have no direct experience with the libel like Europe/Russia has), I have a hunch (but no direct evidence) this term was brought into conservative blog posts by conservative Jews as a way to analogize perceived "persecution" of conservatives by the "liberal MSM."

In that (admittedly speculative) context, Palin's use of "blood libel" is most likely not what some here are claiming: a coded appeal to anti-Semitism. Palin is well-known as a fundamentalist Christian of the ilk that "reveres" Israel, especially in its Netanyahu guise as a symbol for important events supposedly prophesied in the New Testament.

I think she means this solely as a dramatic term (think "death panels") for which she prides herself, designed to elicit sympathy for her as a terribly oppressed victim.

"Palin has done nothing wrong and those who accuse her of promoting this event through her freedom of speech are only attempting to muddy the water of political discontent and failure of their own party's efforts to rise to the demands of the majority of Americans which is evidenced by the midterm elections"

While looking at history, and there is no doubt that the last election was an overwhelming defeat for the party in power, could the 2008 election not be seen as the same thing, but in the opposite direction. Obama/Biden won that election with a large margin, so could it not be said that the Repubs did not "rise to the demands of the majority of Americans" at that time? If so was Palin not a part of that defeat?

"Palin has done nothing wrong and those who accuse her of promoting this event through her freedom of speech are only attempting to muddy the water of political discontent and failure of their own party's efforts to rise to the demands of the majority of Americans which is evidenced by the midterm elections"

While looking at history, and there is no doubt that the last election was an overwhelming defeat for the party in power, could the 2008 election not be seen as the same thing, but in the opposite direction. Obama/Biden won that election with a large margin, so could it not be said that the Repubs did not "rise to the demands of the majority of Americans" at that time? If so was Palin not a part of that defeat?

And is there any doubt an any sane person's mind that she is a self-promoting {Massengill}, and that anyone who opens their mouth like this before thinking should not be allowed anywhere near the Presidency? If she manages to tick off the citizenry like this with just two ill-chosen words, imagine how thoroughly she could anger Mahmoud Ahmedinejad or Kim Jong-Il (or his son), just to name a few.

As I see it, an excellent comment written by Peter Beaumont in UK's Guardian :

a few parts :

The sense of victimhood of the Tea Party and its fellow travellers should now be well known. It was Glenn Beck, after all – the man who accused America's first African American president of being "racist" – who last year told a rally of his followers in Washington that they had taken on the mantle of the civil rights movement.

Now Sarah Palin, former vice presidential candidate, has repeated this same repellent inversion, accusing those who criticised her for her violent political rhetoric against Gabrielle Giffords, the congresswoman shot in Arizona on Saturday, of perpetrating a "blood libel" against her. In using that expression, Palin has appropriated a phrase with a specific meaning in the long history of hate crime against the Jewish people.

First mentioned in the Gospel of Matthew to refer to the supposed Jewish guilt for the crucifixion of Jesus, over the centuries it came to mean something even more pernicious: the fraudulent claim that Jews used the blood of murdered children in their rituals. More awful still, perhaps, is the context in which Palin has adopted the language: to recast herself as the victim in defending herself from claims that her language and behaviour may have helped create the context for the attempted murder of a congresswoman who, in fact, is Jewish.

But more problematic still is a scenario where Palin knows what "blood libel" actually means, attaching herself as a victim on the same footing as those who suffered centuries of antisemitic persecution that culminated in the Holocaust. Is this what Palin is implying? Poor Sarah. That criticism of her crass political style is of the same order as the pogroms and expulsions perpetrated against the Jewish people?

This video statement was a second chance to show how she could act as a statesman and engage with the debate about America's overheated political language at a time when families are still mourning their dead. She had an opportunity to demonstrate that she was not simply a polarising and partisan figure and to dismiss the suspicions that she is self-serving, narcissistic and self-obsessed.

In that, Sarah Palin has manifestly failed. And she has failed not just as a politician, but as a human being, too.

Palin's words are OK. "Blood libel" can be used in reference to an ethnic group's historical or real-time persecution, such as the Jews, or the persecution of a political party or point of view, such as Republicans or conservatives. Let's not make English words fit only a historical perspective. For example, "holocaust" is a tragedy and a massive loss of live and that can fit a Cambodia's or an ant-hill if taken to its real meaning. Similarly, "blitz" fits the poor Londoners in the early 40's or any fast invasion or attack. We are getting to sensitive to words through political correctness in this country. Let's stop that!

MEN MEN MEN HAVE ROYAL F---KED UP THIS ECONOMY MEN MEN MEN MEN MEN MEN MEN THEY ARE INEMPT AT TELLING THE TRUTH & ONLY LIES FALL FROM THERE LYING LIPS! IN WALL STREET AN HEALTH CARE INSURANCE, BANKS THE PRESIDENT AN GONGRESS, AN THE MEDIA ALL LIARS GALORE AN THEY SPREAD THEIR EVIL PROPAGANDA THAT NO ONE BELIEVES ANYMORE! YOU ARE ALL DONE AN ITS THE END OF YOUR RESHEAMS AN MONOPOLIES IN ALL COUNTRIES HAVE SCREWED THE WHOLE ECONOMY AN BROUNGHT IT TO ITS KNEES. MEN MEN MEN MEN EQUALS NOTHING BUT LYING DOGS ALL OF THEM ABOVE. SARAH THEY ARE AFFRAID OF YOU PLAIN AN SIMPLE ITS TIME FOR WOMAN TO RUN THESE SOB'S OUT OF OFFICE!

A Palin aide defended the former governor in an appearance on Alaska radio Sunday, saying that there was "nothing irresponsible" about the images of crosshairs used in a map of the 20 congressional districts targeted by Palin's PAC.
-------------------------------------------

Then what's the rush to take off the bullseye map right after the shooting?

Here we are at a time when the general call from the people in response to this tragedy is to request that the level of political vitriol that abounds be reduced. So what does Sarah Palin do? She actively helps to stoke it up to the next level!

Yes. I do admit that accusing her of being an accomplice to murder is over the top even if her web site did include a picture of Congresswoman Gifford in the cross-hairs. Everyone knows (or should know) that what Palin was aiming at was Gifford's political life, not her physical life! As yes, Palin may have been apeing the words of another conservative commentator. However, that does not excuse Palin's poor choice in using those words.

Sarah Palin needs to realize that as a political leader, she has a special responsibility in helping to tone down the level of the rhetoric going around. In that regards, she had failed dramatically, and I for one hope that she is held accountable for that. Sarah Palin was very much within her rights to decry the allegation that she was an accomplice to the tragedy in Tuscon. Had she simply called it unfounded, irresponsible, and an unfortunate escalation of the political vitriol, I would have supported her on that count even though I totally hate her as a politician. Instead, we get "blood libel".

Sigh. As a Jew, she may have done us a favor by bringing to people's attention the evil of the blood libel, and may have made many people who were aware of the libel but not its falsehood rethink their beliefs. On the other hand, as an American, I can only say "ENOUGH ALREADY". Please Lord, let the vitriol end here.

To be fair to Gov. Palin, she has no way of knowing that her phrases are offensive to Jewish Americans. That would imply that she had some deep understanding of history that obviously eludes.

The half-term Governor proves time and again that her talents are not ready for prime time, and the only people who find her ready for the Presidential stage are her death-eater followers and a press corps hungry for news.

Good for her. You go girl! I'd be warming up the lawyers in the bull pen if I were her to slap lawsuits on liberal media conglomerates for attempting to incite a riot, slander and libel against her person. The biggest icing on this liberal driven witch hunt is the fact that this murderous kid is a diehard liberal himself! Libs=FAIL. In fact if she runs for POTUS in 2012 I will vote for here JUST because the liberals hate her so much. I figure if they hate someone that much and devote so much of their time to making them look bad then they must be very dangerous to the liberal agenda which in my mind is a very good thing.

Posted by: j0nx | January 12, 2011 2:43 PM
=========================================
Are you stupid or something? Did you read what you just wrote? Every thing you accuse the so-called liberal media or doing, THIS WOMAN HAS DONE!! Nobody hates Sarah Palin! And She make HERSELF look stoopid everytime she opens her mouth. You can hardly blame the media for pointing it out!!

The problem is that too many people pay her the attention (and money) she craves, therefore she won't go away. Stay tuned for more insipid and idiotic remarks from the woman who has a cranium full of sponge cake.

Democrats blamed the right from Krugman's article two hours after the shooting to this very moment. They can just not let it go. The hatred for Palin coming from the left has been the worst I have ever seen in my lifetime. She has done nothing to deserve it except have her name put forth as a nominee and then it started and has not stopped.

The shooter left papers in his safe - and complaining to others over his weird obsession with grammar that he didn't like an answer Giffords gave him to a question he posed to her at a corner gathering in 2007 - that was 4 yrs ago he has been apparently harboring this so called hatred towards her and her answer...........

So Palin crosshairs or talk radio or Fox has nothing to do with this unless you also want to hold just as culpable and guilty the Democratic Congressional re-election committee for their map with bullseyes and target republican pictures that pop up, or the few liberal radio people who exist and MSNBC and any other major media who don't feel that Sarah Palin can do anything they won't find objectionable.

But then again democrats don't feel their complaints and hate tactics are over the top because they feel those people deserve it because they don't agree with them. Just care to count up how many times any American who doesn't agree with the left principles has been called a racist or bigot? How about the right will follow when the left leads.....and we won't hold our breath waiting.

Howard Kurtz, The Daily Beast wrote: "Had Palin scoured a thesaurus, she could not have come up with a more inflammatory phrase."

That image of Palin cluelessly thumbing through a thesaurus is comical. But in order for Palin to have consulted a thesaurus, she first would have had to consult a dictionary to learn what a thesaurus is. Then she'd have to ponder the meaning of words to appreciate the need for a thesaurus. Those challenges would have been insurmountable for her.

The american press loves stories like this. This story does not deserve the headlines it's receiving but the press itself loves to create an atmosphere of hysterics and it is the press that drives the atmosphere of hate that exists in this country. It was the press INCLUDING THE POST that first mentioned that the killings where political and spoke of the supposed hateful rhetoric that now exists between the two parties.

Now comes the headline "Arizona Awaits President Obama" as if to put the word out that if you want to take a shot at the president then now is the time to do it. The press would love nothing more than for that to happen.

One thing I noticed about THIS president is that he doesn't broadcast his intended travel plans like previous presidents and that is a good thing.

As a citizen I noticed how the press always broadcasted where previous presidents were to be on any given day as if to give their enemies a heads up if they wanted to plan something. That's how I looked at it anyway. That seemed to change with President Obama and I'm glad it did.

While I love the press for many of the good things it does, I hate them for way more idiotic and suspect things they do.

There's been a young black female teen missing in Baltimore for over a week now but the press chose to broadcast stories about dead birds and fish in favor of helping the authorities get the word out about the young girl.

Right now I bet they are waiting for Mr. Ted Williams, the homeless man with the voice, to fail so that they can report how he went from homeless to the top of the world and back to the bottom within a short period of time. That's how our press works.

The latest news report is that Ms. Palin took the video down.
That's a good thing.
Her reference to 'blood libel' and duels is incredibly immature and indicates she simply cannot take responsibility for her actions and statements.
She defends herself by speaking in a form of Bible code to her followers to keep them following her.
She can't understand that she is percieved as an inciter, not the type of statesman-leader America is looking for.
This political partisan gaffe will not serve her well.
When she first came to national attention in 2008, I thought she was interesting and feisty.
Now I simply find her behavior pathetic.
Sarah needs to bow out and go back to fishing.
She's more than wasted her more than 15 minutes.

Fordperfect wrote: "This brings to the forefront - when will the collective media make known the fact that the "Tea Party" is nothing more than a re-branded re-labeled John Birch Society?"

Yes. The Tea Party and the John Birch Society espouse the same philosophies. But for that comparison to have impact, you probably should explain what the John Birch Society is:

The society seeks to limit the powers of government and defends the original intention of the U.S. Constitution, which it sees as based on Christian principles. The society opposes the civil rights movement because its believes that the civil rights movement was created by communists. It opposes the United Nations, the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), the Central America Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA), the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA), and other free trade agreements.

Historians and scholars sharply disagree as to the weight religon played in Nazi Germany leading up to the final solution. However, none disagree to the nature in which religion was used to stimulate hate toward jewish people in the beginning of Nazi Germany. Also, there are many different uses of the phrase in question and within the context of Palin's use of it, there should be no question that Palin was referencing the political slant from the left wing, which is predictable in situations such as this event.

Furthermore, it is clear, beyond a reasonable doubt I might add, that the shooter was in favor of a Hitler/Nazi application of Karl Marx, which is not uncommon notions held by uneducated left wing people who are encouraged by hate stimulated by the left toward the right and or conservatives.

I predicted that such an event might be stimulated by the left in my blog some time ago when I wrote if any violent event which included taking a life, would come from the left toward their own people in power. I have blogged and responded to many who hate republican conservatives on this site on a regular basis. Hate seems to be a way of life for them. However, there are those who engage in debate and can seem to control their tempers.

In my opinion, Palin has done nothing wrong and those who accuse her of promoting this event through her freedom of speech are only attempting to muddy the water of political discontent and failure of their own party's efforts to rise to the demands of the majority of Americans which is evidenced by the midterm elections. Furthermore, I see no reason to go to great political efforts to burden the tax payer's with around the clock security for congress. This is only one isolated case carried out by a disturbed individual who was ignored for several years by the congress woman's own staff. Perhaps ignoring the warning signs was thought to feeding the anger of this man as precieved by the staff, toward the right, so they failed to develop a relationship that may have exposed him sooner. In any event, it is the responsibility of each who serves government to provide for their own security. In this case, security efforts failed on many levels and that is a shame. To avoid future events, perhaps those who hold elected positions in government should listen more to those who write them as opposed to sending out responses that are generalized to appeal to the masses. An individualized response, in my opinion would help address these concerns and would identify a potential threat sooner.

Next on the Palin agenda is a defense against the reaction to her use of the term 'blood libel' which has become the right-wing phrase of the moment. Palin will cry foul about any accusation of antisemitism. She will claim that people are ascribing a meaning to the term that was never intended. In fact, she'll no doubt add that she was unaware of the historic use of the term.

So her ignorance is visible absent a ferocious intent.

Many of her followers, however, will rise to her defense. For them, racism and antisemitism are ingrained. After all, they are Real Americans.

Please, please get that @#%%##**#@% idiot-dimwit off the front pages of of this newspaper.

She is making America ill.

She does not, repeat does NOT author anything attributed to her; she can't even speak in complete sentences.

If you think her North Korea statement was a gaffe, you're sadly mistaken. She doesn't know their is a South Korea and two years ago did not know what the DMZ is.

She is a moron and she continues to spew poison into the atmosphere with her gibberish at a time when we should be looking deeply at the damage we're allowing these Fox-Tea bag-Limburger hate-mongers inflict on this great nation.

Posted by: WarrentonMD: "I'm a center-right Republican, so don't scream that my opinions represent a shot at Palin from the far port side. But before hoisting her on the "blood libel" petard, let's parse her comments a bit more carefully. I'm not at all convinced that Ms. Palin actually used this term, if indeed she knows what it means, and the unfortunate connotations associated with it. I think her tweets are actually crafted by her handlers and speechwriters. Terms like "apportion" and "purport" just don't sound like words she uses when speaking extemporaneously. Unkindly, she is an undereducated, albeit clever and cunning person. So perhaps her stupidity lies in the trust she has placed in her ghost-tweeter. This putative writer has committed the cardinal sin: trying to put words into the principal's mouth which just plain don't fit."

Finally. An intelligent observation and comment posted on this site. Comments like this give me hope for the future, especially when they come from members of the other (i.e. Republican) party.

Ultimately, though, Sarah is responsible and accountable for the "official" messages and statements posted on her behalf. She preaches personal responsibility, so she can't duck accountability just because someone else wrote her speech.

This brings to the forefront - when will the collective media make known the fact that the "Tea Party" is nothing more than a re-branded re-labeled John Birch Society? Is Sarah Palin the successor to Robert W Welch, Jr.? No one in their right mind would ever vote for the John Birch Society - but history is blind to facts. Let the people know - the Tea Party is the same ilk as the John Birch Society! Sarah Palin is a modern-day Robert Welch, Jr. Anti-government (while she seeks office!) Anti-tax anti-immigration, anti-everything! She just wants to fill her pockets at our expense.

Every single one of you angry, deranged leftists needs to be locked-up before one of you goes off half-cocked and kills more innocent people that are only exercising their rights.

Posted by: tulsa_dave
------------------------------

...makes one wonder if this guy is yet another NRA nut with a Glock and 30 round clips.

How incredible for the leader of fundamentalist Christians, who still put signs outside their churches that say "The Jews Killed Christ," to use the words "Blood Libel" when their ancestors invented it.

Not one word of "regret" at least, if she couldn't muster an apology for her CROSSHAIRS and RELOAD etc.

This woman shows the signs of a NARCISSIST.

Her crosshairs and "reload" didn't alone cause this massacre - but
like most massacres, it was a sum of many factors, including the hate rhetoric. Each piece needs to be taken apart and dealt with.
This woman refused to take part in hers. Abominable.

What else could you call a coordinated effort to frame Sarah Palin and the tea party with being the cause of a heinous massacre? The fabricated libelous narrative started immediately with no facts supporting it. Amazingly, Sheriff Dupnick embarrassed the Pima County Sheriff's office by asserting opinion as fact.

The hate for Sarah Palin is so visceral, I am surprised it is stronger than the Bush hatred. Liberals might need to look in the mirror about hate speech. They attempted to use this incident to blame Sarah Palin and the tea party by complete fabrication.

Who among you would sit by when you are being blamed as the cause of a massacre?

You want to know why Sarah Palin is responding, ask the people who started blaming her immediately.

It's the Palin Two-Step:
First, say something that sounds tough and uncompromising. That's what your base likes. Don't worry about what it really means or possible consequences. (Be sure to wear red jacket to suggest passion.)
Second, as soon as someone points out the meaning or the consequences come about, point out how you're once again a victim of the bad old liberals and media. (Be sure to wear the dark blue or black jacket to suggest sadness and seriousness.)

Palin does not have to "accuse."
the raw fact is that she is right in her statement.

what i am anxious to see is will a single democrat or journalist step up to the plate and admit that they were 100% wrong in their actions.

and where are the leaders of the democrat Party who should have at least stepped up to the plate and denounce this as soon as it began?

Posted by: ChooseBestCandidate | January 12, 2011 1:40 PM
=======================================
She's stupid! And since you are here defending her as if SHE'S the victim, THEN YOU'RE AS BIG A FOOL AS SHE IS!!

Facts: Her district was in the cross hairs! She was shot in the head!

Now whether or not the Uncle Festor lookin' psycho is directly influenced by Palin is NOT the issue!! The issue is she had this woman in the cross hairs and she got shot!! Guess what, this wouldn't be an issue for Palin as much, if she didn't have the target on this congress woman! Period, point blank!! Is it fair, probably not! But combine that map with the Don't Retreat Reload comments and all the rest of the hootnany that comes out of her mouth, and yes, the connections will and should be made!! You can't go around shaking up a hornets nest and then get mad when they sting you!!

It's the Palin Two-Step:
First, say something that sounds tough and uncompromising. That's what your base likes. Don't worry about what it really means or possible consequences.
Second, as soon as someone points out the meaning or the consequences come about, point out how you're once again a victim of the bad old liberals and media. (Be sure to wear the red jacket.)

Posted by: B2O2
"There is one thing Palin has right here. And that's that America is an EXCEPTIONAL country. We are number one in handgun murders per capita worldwide. In fact, we are an order of magnitude higher than most European countries. So we really stand apart from the rest of the world - and not in a good way - in that respect. Gee, I wonder if we should make semi-automatic weapons a little harder to get, so that unstable people couldn't get a hold of them at the drop of a hat? I know that would offend the NRA-GOP partnership, and cut off a major part of Republican campaign funding, but aren't people's lives a little more important than that?"

It's so nice to see the Leftist mind not at work. Like pulling claims out of thin air, or placing the narrowest definitions upon statistics until they say what you want them to say.

So America leads the world in handgun murders, eh? ASSUMING that to be true, does America lead the world in violent attacks, in all gun homicides (and genocides)? Tell me, how many crimes were STOPPED by firearms last year? The numbers I have are from the 1990's in which approximately 2.5 million times, crime was prevented by someone wielding a gun.

And NO, people's lives are NOT more important than defending our liberties; otherwise, all those patriots would not have died to gain those liberties.

Remember this is the lock and load, bear hunting, moose soup serving, diva who suggested that the President palls around with terrorists, that he is a secret Muslim who worships at a racist Christian church in Chicago, and whose wife hates America. A diva, who when asked how we should handle the conflict between the two Koreas on the Glen Beck show said "But obviously, we've got to stand with our North Korean allies."

rscott251 wrote:
The guy was a pot head. And Cali wants to make it legal. A paranioa inducing drug..
-------

Somebody's seen "Reefer Madness" one too many times. In medical jargon, "feelings of paranoia" (side affect of pot) is not the same as "acute paranoid personality disorder" or "paranoid schizophrenia." The latter are serious chronic conditions pot won't bring on in someone who isn't already a sufferer—unless maybe you chain smoke big fat joint of the strongest pot in the world all day long for years. When they refer to side effects related to pot as "feelings of paranoia" they mean the kind like, "I wonder if people walking outside can smell this joint. I bet they can. That guy walking his dog at the other end of street just looked this way. I bet he smelled the smoke. I bet he's going home to call the cops. Hey man, close the curtains and spray that Fabreeze everywhere." When in reality the windows are closed, the street is no where close enough to the house to smell didly squat, and the guy walking the dog is too far away to notice anything. In the chronic mental disorder version of paranoia, especially paranoid schizophrenia, it's hardly the same thing. The schizophrenia aspect may include audible, and even visual hallucinations, along with delusional thinking and tentative grasp of reality.

If the guy was an average pot smoker with "feelings of paranoia" that mental state would probably be mixed with a desire to "relax and chill"—he'd be more likely to stay home with the curtains drawn, park his butt on the sofa, and settle in for the Johnny Quest Cartoon marathon and eat heaping helpings of Captain Crunch. Pot smokers aren't exactly motivated to go out and "do things", they're more likely to stay home and avoid doing anything at all, let alone shoot people. A guy with a history of paranoid schizophrenia and documented troubling behavior is those things, pot or no pot.

The word "target" has been deemed offensive by The American JurnoList Media Association and its sister organization, The Mainstream Media Group. Both organizations have asked The White House Office of Messages and Speech to immediately direct Target Corporation change its name and logo. The White House has agreed and will announce its ruling in BB Directive (via ELink Electronic Format) No. 45LK937-9001029JPmmq to the corporation. As always with politically correct issues, no appeal will be allowed.

As a reminder, the word "point" has also been determined by the aforementioned groups to be offensive and will be stricken from all upcoming editions of English language dictionary's. Older versions will be collected and burned in accordance with BB Directive No. 65PR841-6300045DHmmf. Because of the charged political atmosphere, versions in languages other than English may remain in print.

It's ironic that a fundamentalist Christian fanatic like Palin would be using the term "blood libel" to play victim here. Because it was fanatic Christian in the middle ages that used this concocted story to persecute Jews, even after they were done persecuting them in the inquisition.

Remember this is the lock and load, bear hunting, moose soup serving, diva who suggested that the President palls around with terrorists, that he is a secret Muslim who worships at a racist Christian church in Chicago, and whose wife hates America. A diva, who when asked how we should handle the conflict between the two Koreas on the Glen Beck show said "But obviously, we've got to stand with our North Korean allies."

Good for her. You go girl! I'd be warming up the lawyers in the bull pen if I were her to slap lawsuits on liberal media conglomerates for attempting to incite a riot, slander and libel against her person. The biggest icing on this liberal driven witch hunt is the fact that this murderous kid is a diehard liberal himself! Libs=FAIL. In fact if she runs for POTUS in 2012 I will vote for here JUST because the liberals hate her so much. I figure if they hate someone that much and devote so much of their time to making them look bad then they must be very dangerous to the liberal agenda which in my mind is a very good thing.

I'm a center-right Republican, so don't scream that my opinions represent a shot at Palin from the far port side. But before hoisting her on the "blood libel" petard, let's parse her comments a bit more carefully. I'm not at all convinced that Ms. Palin actually used this term, if indeed she knows what it means, and the unfortunate connotations associated with it. I think her tweets are actually crafted by her handlers and speechwriters. Terms like "apportion" and "purport" just don't sound like words she uses when speaking extemporaneously. Unkindly, she is an undereducated, albeit clever and cunning person. So perhaps her stupidity lies in the trust she has placed in her ghost-tweeter. This putative writer has committed the cardinal sin: trying to put words into the principal's mouth which just plain don't fit.

I'm a center-right Republican, so don't scream that my opinions represent a shot at Palin from the far port side. But before hoisting her on the "blood libel" petard, let's parse her comments a bit more carefully. I'm not at all convinced that Ms. Palin actually used this term, if indeed she knows what it means, and the unfortunate connotations associated with it. I think her tweets are actually crafted by her handlers and speechwriters. Terms like "apportion" and "purport" just don't sound like words she uses when speaking extemporaneously. Unkindly, she is an undereducated, albeit clever and cunning person. So perhaps her stupidity lies in the trust she has placed in her ghost-tweeter. This putative writer has committed the cardinal sin: trying to put words into the principal's mouth which just plain don't fit.

And #BlamePalin exists because of the hatred that Sarah Palin has spewed against America, against our President, against our Congress, against our Laws, and against our core values of Truth, Justice, and the American Middle Class way of life.

I found the reflected light square of the teleprompter in Palin's eyeglasses very distracting. I wonder what the conservatives here think about that - don't they consider the use of a teleprompter an unpardonable sin? At least I know when the president uses one for a major speech they do.

There is one thing Palin has right here. And that's that America is an EXCEPTIONAL country. We are number one in handgun murders per capita worldwide. In fact, we are an order of magnitude higher than most European countries. So we really stand apart from the rest of the world - and not in a good way - in that respect. Gee, I wonder if we should make semi-automatic weapons a little harder to get, so that unstable people couldn't get a hold of them at the drop of a hat? I know that would offend the NRA-GOP partnership, and cut off a major part of Republican campaign funding, but aren't people's lives a little more important than that?

Posted by: edanddot
"You have proved that you are hypocrite in one short comment. You mentally challenged Teabaggers think it is YOUR right to castigate the president with vile and vulgar language.
You sow hate, you will harvest violence. If you can't understand this, that's your problem, but save your hypocritical BS for your fellow Teabaggers."

So as the usual talking heads begin their "have you no decency?" routine aimed at talk radio and Republican politicians, perhaps we should turn the question around. Where is the decency in blood libel?

To paraphrase Justice Cardozo ("proof of negligence in the air, so to speak, will not do"), there is no such thing as responsibility in the air. Those who try to connect Sarah Palin and other political figures with whom they disagree to the shootings in Arizona use attacks on "rhetoric" and a "climate of hate" to obscure their own dishonesty in trying to imply responsibility where none exists. But the dishonesty remains.

To be clear, if you're using this event to criticize the "rhetoric" of Mrs. Palin or others with whom you disagree, then you're either: (a) asserting a connection between the "rhetoric" and the shooting, which based on evidence to date would be what we call a vicious lie; or (b) you're not, in which case you're just seizing on a tragedy to try to score unrelated political points, which is contemptible. Which is it?

I understand the desperation that Democrats must feel after taking a historic beating in the midterm elections and seeing the popularity of ObamaCare plummet while voters flee the party in droves. But those who purport to care about the health of our political community demonstrate precious little actual concern for America's political well-being when they seize on any pretext, however flimsy, to call their political opponents accomplices to murder.

Its obvious to the casual sane observer that Loughner was following George W Bush into the world paranoid schizophrenia with his delusions. Bush had delusions of terrorists behind every tree and that Americans were holding back information so he instituted Patriot Act and Illegal Wiretaps. Loughner thought the government was trying to control him. Was he wrong?

Loughner no doubt heard Palin calls the government was setting up death panels. Again Loughner was fearful of the government.

To Sarah Palin:
Your statment means nothing. Just like when you slammed Obama about being slow with the Oil disaster. I have to ask, Where were you since last Saturday. If you actually cared about what happened in Arizona you would have released your statement earlier. But no, you figure you're above everyone else. And then you have the nerve not to admit your responsibility in this tragedy because of your vile talk. Sending an e-mail to Glenn Beck does not qualify as a statement. It only qualifies as an e-mail to another equally vile friend.
Ms. Palin you are an ignorant vile person. Please stay in Alaska. Stay with your family, watch them grow and enjoy life. But remember, People are dead because of a mad man. And as much as the right wants to blame the Health System. Words hurt, and you have hurt alot of people by your words.

whatmeregister ~ I am very familiar with the history of Judaism including "THE blood libel" ~ which is usually spoken with the article "the" in Caps when dealing the exact falsehood that is told.

Inasmuch as the English language came along centuries after that story was first told it's usage has simply broadened.

It's not a monopoly situation although maybe it is in Hebrew, German, Dutch, French, Arabic, Berber and so forth. Those are ancient languages with their own literature and conventions. English is not as ancient, and although it taps into everyone's words, it doesn't always track the subtle nuances of literary subtlety.

Give you an example, the "first" European Jewish ghetto was in GETO ~ still spelled that way in Venice I believe. Professor Cantor who wrote their definitive history has a picture of the word in his book.

English spells it different and has broadened its implications far beyond the intention of it's Aramaic speaking originators. I do believe I could easily find hundreds of Jewish authors who turned to the English spelling to deal with stories of the inner city civil rights battle of the 1969s.

There are many other Hebrew, Aramaic and Ladino words that've slipped into common English usage, but with a slight change to make them more applicable to more similar situations.

I really doubt anybody is going to go back into English and pull out those words ~ unless, of course, you really want to but you'll be called a NAZI fur shur ~

Everyone is responsible for their own words and actions... EXCEPT for Sarah Palin.

Sarah can use incendiary political language and not be responsible for inciting crazies.

Sarah can defend the carrying of assault weapons to political events and she is not responsible when some crazy pulls a trigger at a political event.

Sarah can put bulls eye targets on political opponents and not be responsible when someone pops a cap on a politician.

Sarah can talk like she wants the right wing crazies to shoot up the country and she is not responsible when a left-wing crazy decides to take up arms against a Blue Dog Democrat... BEFORE its too late.

Sarah likes to talk the insurrectionist talk and walk the insurrectionist walk but she is not responsible when a crazy on the other side decides to start shooting before she does.

A perfect example of the law of unintended consequences biting Sarah hard on her skinny butt.

Sarah gets criticized because she didn't make a statement. Sarah gets criticized because she does make a statement. You people are never satisfied. It's all a no-win situation with you no matter what she does.

Posted by: SouthernLady
-----------------
This is how conservative wing-nuts re-frame the issues. She is not criticized for not making statements, she is criticized for so-called press conferences where she doesn't take questions. However, considering that she is mentally defective, she's ALWAYS better of saying nothing.

I don't think ANY liberal would complain if Palin kept her mouth shut ... or moved away from America.

Talk about chutzpah! First she whips up the right-wing crazies, then, when a paranoid man, undoubtedly affected by the political climate, shoots a Jewish congresswoman, she acts as if she and her TPers are the victims! Sarah, go home.

And dear Hispana, some us have real educations, know what a blood libel is (and a metaphor), and still think Palin is slime. Maybe if Hitler had killed off a lot of your family, you would be a little more sensitive to fascists claiming victimhood.

Well if nothing else apparently alot of folks commenting on this obviously play into the arguement about heated retoric, I do not know if Mrs. Palin is aware of the historical context of the term used, but I am pretty sure she will be after today.

Well if nothing else apparently alot of folks commenting on this obviously play into the arguement about heated retoric, I do not know if Mrs. Palin is aware of the historical context of the term used, but I am pretty sure she will be after today.

After reading the post in here today,I can understand why this country is going to H*ll..This has got to be the most hateful,ignorant people in here today,that ever came down the Pike....Calling an Ex Governor and a woman everything they can think of,only because they don't agree with her....I guess you could say..its a mob in a frenzy.
__________________________________________________________________________________

You have proved that you are hypocrite in one short comment. You mentally challenged Teabaggers think it is YOUR right to castigate the president with vile and vulgar language.
You sow hate, you will harvest violence. If you can't understand this, that's your problem, but save your hypocritical BS for your fellow Teabaggers.

Posted by: rkornegay1
"Sarah Palin is the poster child for the homegrown terrorist group(s) known as the "tea party" whose weapons of choice are hatred, fear and rage/mob mentality against minorities, women, gays & lesbians and Muslims & Jews. The whole world saw their hatred and bigotry on display during the 2010 midterm elections and heard their call to battle (take back our country). The whole world saw the majority of White Americans vote for the entire GOP ticket regardless of the candidates experience. The American People have never seen organized terrorism at the ballot box. The GOP needs to apologize and never again let any group of people committ acts of terrorism against the American People."

VERY IMPRESSIVE!
To regurgitate every HuffyPost lie about the Tea Party Movement in one breath is quite a feat. It's too bad you only get your info from the comPost et al.

Go ahead; take another swig of Ariana's Kool-aid. You deserve it after such a dutiful post.

Yes, Loughner is more Hinkley than not. Nevertheless, his communications show he was picking up on some of the paranoid themes being spread around, even if he didn't reference Beck or Palin.

More importantlly, Loughner is not the only case in evidence. Just Monday the Post reported rising attacks on federal workers. Last summer, the FBI arrested members of a militia who were planning the political murder of police officers. The number and membership of right-wing militias has risen dramatically in the past 2 years. The Southern Poverty Law Center, which monitors hate groups, reports greatly increased activity.

So yes, there is an effect of encouraging hate and fear. It occurs over and over in the political life of many nations.

Big bad mama gizzly acting all flustered by her critics, who cares? Let her say whatever she wants, she's a loser. The only way she ever gets attention is by posting twitter notes. She incited violence for an entire campaign season and now pretends she's all about getting along and debateing the issues. Making money by keeping her name in the limelight is her only agenda.

For years I have been ridiculed or ignored by my fellow liberals and the FCC as I desperately tried to warn people that our society must address the dishonest hate-speech and bigoted propaganda that has been spewing unabated from AM stations across the nation on our public airwaves.

I have tried to point out that Limbaugh and Hannity and their ilk have been abusing our free speech laws to demonize their political opponents, literally speaking. Time after time I have been told by liberals in the press to 'just ignore them, turn the channel'. But I couldn't turn away from this hateful spectacle because I knew that there were millions of Americans who were also listening to these shows and were coming to the conclusion that the dishonest revisionist history being taught by these talk-radio hosts 'must be true, otherwise they wouldn't be allowed to say it on the radio'.

I have filed many FCC complaints to no avail. I am not asking the FCC to control what these people say, I am simply asking for the FCC to make some room for opposing views on our public airwaves because it is only when opposing views are heard on the air on the same radio stations these hate-talkers monopolize that their followers will hear them and be forced to consider the question 'maybe they're right, otherwise they couldn't say it on the radio...could they?'

Big bad mama gizzly acting all flustered by her critics, who cares? Let her say whatever she wants, she's a loser. The only way she ever gets attention is by posting twitter notes. She incited violence for an entire campaign season and now pretends she's all about getting along and debateing the issues. Making money by keeping her name in the limelight is her only agenda.

Ms. Palin is either a genuinely ignorant person (for settling on the phrase "blood libel" as her latest provocation) or a genuinely malicious one (for settling on the phrase "blood libel" as her latest provocation). Either way, her wisest counselor - presuming such a one exists, s/he would be the quiet one standing against the wall, the one who seldom if ever is listened to - should whisper insistently, repeatedly in her best ear, the one that sometimes listens, "this is not going well. You should simply express condolences and abandon the field." But that's not her way: with a skin thickness measured in microns, she just cannot take any of this elitist crap sitting down. She has to fight back, hold her own, fire away, in her own distinctively ignorant, malicious way. (Yes, you had it right all along: they're not exclusive categories).

Whenever Sarah Palin is criticized for anything, her sole response is to attack back or blame others. Why can't she say "I'm so sorry for the victims, and to the extent that anyone thinks my map had anything to do with this, I'm sorry because I would never intend such a thing". But no, her response is blame the media for "blood libel", and suggest further violence! Many Republicans likewise hope she will take Barbara Bush's advice and stay in Alaska!! She has added nothing but more fuel with her "stupid" remarks!!

After reading the post in here today,I can understand why this country is going to H*ll..This has got to be the most hateful,ignorant people in here today,that ever came down the Pike....Calling a Ex Governor and a woman everything they can think of,only because they don't agree with her....I guess you could say..its a mob in a frenzy.

Posted by: corebanks1940 | January 12, 2011 2:03 PM
==========================================
And do you also see the absurdity when it's done to a sitting President?

Sarah Palin is the poster child for the homegrown terrorist group(s) known as the "tea party" whose weapons of choice are hatred, fear and rage/mob mentality against minorities, women, gays & lesbians and Muslims & Jews. The whole world saw their hatred and bigotry on display during the 2010 midterm elections and heard their call to battle (take back our country). The whole world saw the majority of White Americans vote for the entire GOP ticket regardless of the candidates experience. The American People have never seen organized terrorism at the ballot box. The GOP needs to apologize and never again let any group of people committ acts of terrorism against the American People.

After reading the post in here today,I can understand why this country is going to H*ll..This has got to be the most hateful,ignorant people in here today,that ever came down the Pike....Calling an Ex Governor and a woman everything they can think of,only because they don't agree with her....I guess you could say..its a mob in a frenzy.

After reading the post in here today,I can understand why this country is going to H*ll..This has got to be the most hateful,ignorant people in here today,that ever came down the Pike....Calling a Ex Governor and a woman everything they can think of,only because they don't agree with her....I guess you could say..its a mob in a frenzy.

Annie Oakley is out of style and her ignorance can be seen farther than Russia from her back porch.

richp1 | January 12, 2011 1:55 PM |
-=-==-=-
i say "ignorance" is not knowing after all this time has passed with all the reading that you probably do? that that that statement was erroneously credited to Palin.

This woman doesn’t get it! Sarah Palin should spare us her hypocritical sympathy and crocodile tears. She should keep her violent rhetoric to herself and within her family now. Please let the families of the dead and wounded mourn and grieve over their tragedy with dignity instead of adding insult to their wounds. Better still, she should stay permanently in Alaska (where polls show no one wants her). She should stay there barricaded in her waterfront home, instead of coming to the rest of America to cause trouble. After all, she and her husband once wanted to secede from America until Sen. McCain gave her a taste of power and thus opened this Pandora’s box of gutter snipping pomposity and nihilism. Ever since, she has been attempting validly, enabled by the media, to militarize our politics. Now the chicken has come to roost. She says her past forays into military and hunting metaphors were all about the ballot box. Why didn’t she say so in plane language? She thinks we are all fools. Has she even forgotten her support for Second Amendment remedies in our politics and her palling around with its promoters such as Sharon Angle of Nevada and the likes of her—in the last elections. Palin’s video is totally self-serving and is really intended to let us know that she is still stroking her political ambition. She speaks of “evil” but who really are the evil ones—the instigators and enablers of violence in our society or those who get influenced by them or directly carry out their fundamentalist dicta? It is unfortunate that some dotting and equally hypocritical corporate media would play her video in full—something they don’t always do even for the President of the United States. I bet if that video was an hour long, those media outlets would have played it in full as well. Last word: Dame Palin, go on with your caribou hunting and seal smashing pastime big time now, something you would expect some cannibal gods to enjoy doing! Leave us, and the families of victims, alone! Please!!! That is the class thing to do!
Dr. Sam

This woman doesn’t get it! Sarah Palin should spare us her hypocritical sympathy and crocodile tears. She should keep her violent rhetoric to herself and within her family now. Please let the families of the dead and wounded mourn and grieve over their tragedy with dignity instead of adding insult to their wounds. Better still, she should stay permanently in Alaska (where polls show no one wants her). She should stay there barricaded in her waterfront home, instead of coming to the rest of America to cause trouble. After all, she and her husband once wanted to secede from America until Sen. McCain gave her a taste of power and thus opened this Pandora’s box of gutter snipping pomposity and nihilism. Ever since, she has been attempting validly, enabled by the media, to militarize our politics. Now the chicken has come to roost. She says her past forays into military and hunting metaphors were all about the ballot box. Why didn’t she say so in plane language? She thinks we are all fools. Has she even forgotten her support for Second Amendment remedies in our politics and her palling around with its promoters such as Sharon Angle of Nevada and the likes of her—in the last elections. Palin’s video is totally self-serving and is really intended to let us know that she is still stroking her political ambition. She speaks of “evil” but who really are the evil ones—the instigators and enablers of violence in our society or those who get influenced by them or directly carry out their fundamentalist dicta? It is unfortunate that some dotting and equally hypocritical corporate media would play her video in full—something they don’t always do even for the President of the United States. I bet if that video was an hour long, those media outlets would have played it in full as well. Last word: Dame Palin, go on with your caribou hunting and seal smashing pastime big time now, something you would expect some cannibal gods to enjoy doing! Leave us, and the families of victims, alone! Please!!! That is the class thing to do!
Dr. Sam

I find it ironic that WaPo is upset Sarah Palin accused the MSM of using this tragedy to push their own agenda, especially after liberals have spent the past five days blaming the tragedy in Tucson on conservative speech. Perhaps if liberal bloggers, pols and their MSM allies don't want to be accused of manufacturing a blood libel, they should refrain from using the tragedy as a vehicle for manufacturing a blood libel.

Sarah Palin has proven over and over that she is not very bright. With her malapropisms she should shake hands with George Bush. He couldn't talk his way out of a paper bag let alone reach the end of a sentence without sticking his foot in his mouth. Her use of blood libel was badly chosen and she will pay for it and already is. She should go back to her little hallelujah church and her rifles, and forget about the lower states. Annie Oakley is out of style and her ignorance can be seen farther than Russia from her back porch.

Of course every individual is responsible for his or her own actions. But using political rhetoric to inflame public opinion is also a kind of action. Palin is responsible for her own actions in this regard.

While Palin and others may want to focus on the issue of direct individual responsibility for acts of violence, I think most of us are more interested in PREVENTING them. This is why we urgently need adult discussions of such questions as: Can we do a better job of identifying and treating mentally disturbed people? Can we conduct our political discourse in a way that does not provoke mentally disturbed people to attack public figures? Can we find a way to keep deadly weapons out of the hands of mentally disturbed people?

Well, in her quest to be a darling of the Tea party and the GOP in general, Palin did say things that were not appropriate. She did put the target on Ms. Giffords' district. On March 23, Palin tweeted, "Don't Retreat, Instead - RELOAD!". If these were not meant to be violence related than what else was it?
Gabrielle Giffords had even warned that Palin's statements were quite offensive.

Now, Palin is simply trying to deflect the blame. What would have served her and many of her Conservative supporters would be to simply say, "Yes, we erred in saying what we said. Sorry, this will not happen again".
Why do folks like Palin, Limbaugh and Beck feel the need to justify themselves now? They should have thought about the consequences, before shooting their mouths off. The nasty things that Limbaugh and Beck say on a daily basis are absolutely unbelievable. Many on the Fox network like Bill O'Reilly too are no different, inciting violence against doctors performing abortions! A lot of lies have also been fed to the naive and innocent people of this country, during the Health Care debate.

"Blood Libel" is obscure. Are folks know expected to know the etiology of all phrases even when they are not overtly racially, ethnically or otherwise insensitive to avoid historical claims of prejudice? Please, this is ridiculous.

Your incendiary rhetoric has helped create this culture of political violence. Yes, the shooter in Arizona is crazy, but your warfare rhetoric doesn't help, since your base is mainly comprised of gun-obsessed crazies.

In the four days since this shooting, the U.S. fed gov has borrowed another $14 billion; the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have dragged on, draining lives and treasure; the unemployment rate has remained well over 9%; an unknown number of middle and upper-middle class jobs have headed out of the country, helping to guarantee another stellar quarterly profit for Corporate America and not much for anyone else; TSA has hard-groped and full-body x-ray'd countless thousands and plans to get plenty more at malls, restaurants, restrooms, workplaces in the future -- while another 6000 or more illeegs have strolled across the southern non-border; the Pirates of Wall Street have bought the uninterrupted silence, corruption and complicity of the Pirates of Washington to the extraordinary and continuing benefit of both...

...I hate to sound crass (actually, no I don't), but it's time to move on WaPo... like it or not there are more important things going on than Tucson, Arizona.

Posted by: ESR1
"Her paraphrase of Isaiah 5 is either unfortunate or scary. Isaiah 5 is the sort of thing that you would expect to see pinned to the cloak of a suicide bomber:
'Woe to those who draw sin along with cords of deceit, and wickedness as with cart ropes..
Woe to those who call evil good and good evil...
Therefore the LORD’s anger burns against his people; his hand is raised and he strikes them down. The mountains shake, and the dead bodies are like refuse in the streets.'"

Perhaps you ought to read the passage a little more carefully, and understand that it is THE LORD who does these things, not his followers.

Here is another biblical quote (this time from the New Testament:
"Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever."

And this one might make you sit up and take notice that God will judge each of us one day:
"It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God."

Jesus is as much the Jehovah of the Old Testament as He is the Savior of the New Testament. You would be well advised to bow your knee voluntarily to Him now, rather than be forced to at the Judgment.

On her facebook page, the notoriously thin-skinned Sarah Palin has her lackeys hard at work scrubbing her website for anything remotely negative about her.

The staffer who does the editing leaves this horrifying and disgusting comment up:

"It's ok. Christina Taylor Green (the nine year-old girl who was killed) was probably going to end up a left wing bleeding heart liberal anyway. Hey, as 'they' say, what would you do if you had the chance to kill Hitler as a kid? Exactly"

EVERYONE at the Post knows that "blood libel" is a phrase that has been used many times outside the context of anti-semitism, and to paste this Nazi label on Palin merely shows that the Post et al are out to annihilate this woman and anyone else who dares to push back on the democrat media express.

The Post and its gaggle of one-think/one-speak commentators are accomplishing one thing: that Palin is correct.

If we REALLY want to improve discourse in this country, two things are necessary.

First, BOTH sides need to acknowledge what they know (whether or not they'll admit it): that there are crazies and extremists among them and that there are MANY on their own side that engage in irresponsible, uselessly rancorous and divisive rhetoric. Conservative extremists are not going to knock it off because they are being pilloried by liberals and liberal extremists are not going to stop because they are being pilloried by conservatives. These people will ONLY stop when they are taken to task by people who share with them similar goals but who do not approve of their methods or messages. If we want to see ANY improvement in our discourse, we must first leave off the asinine "two wrongs make a right" arguments and then look to OURSELVES and OUR OWN SIDE and remove the planks from our own eye before we point out the splinter in another's.

Fortunately, we ALL have the power to change this, which brings us to the second point: this sort of rhetoric exists because it is effective. It is effective because too many of us buy into it and parrot it because it is easier to make general assumption, to stereotype, to point fingers, to conflate the actions of a sick few with a peaceful majority, to call people "evil", "socialist", "racist", "pinkos", "the enemy" and so on than it is to try to understand why decent people might disagree with one's own point of view. Hate sells, in short, because we buy it and we ALL know the law of supply and demand.

If you want to see some REAL change and some REAL improvement in our public discourse, then simply refuse to listen to those politicians and pundits who appeal to base emotions rather than to our intellects. Do not support them, do not watch their programs, do not give them your money and write them to let them know why. If we demand civil and respectful behavior of ourselves and our leaders, we WILL have it.

It will only work, however, if we ALL grow up and start treating one another with respect. If either side continues to insist on pretending that they are blameless, then we'll never climb out of this filth.

Sarah gets criticized because she didn't make a statement. Sarah gets criticized because she does make a statement. You people are never satisfied. It's all a no-win situation with you no matter what she does.

What about the Westboro Baptist Church? I guess you think what they are planning on doing is acceptable.

Remember Fort Hood and how noone would remark about it because the fool was muslim. shhhhhhh...don't say a word....what a bunch of jo's.

ScottinVA,
As that famous American Dean Wormer said:
"Fat, drunk and stupid is no way to go through life, son."
It is good advice for ScottinVA who publishes more erroneous info per post than anyone here.
Mom
Posted by: FoundingMother
=======================
YEAH he posts under several name and is a 24x7 RW Nutcase Poster.
Even Roger Ailes from FOX is calling to tone down the rhetoric.
Guess he did not get the news.
OR Roger Ailes is only talk.
Posted by: pdq5

Sorry, PDQ5, but I have posted under only this name on both the comPost and the Washington Times.

FoundlingMamma:
It's easy to claim my postings are false without providing any evidence or logical rebuttal.

It's a typical Leftist ad hominem attack to distract from the fact that you have no logic or argument; only invective.

I can't believe the WAPO and the media are still in love with the intellectually challenged Palin. The WAPO's headline is, "Palin accuses critics of 'blood libel'". Did someone shoot her? The WAPO's ALLEDGED journalists are worthless. The is no journalism being practiced by the WAPO. What a sad and pathetic bunch.

Palin said. "Recall how the events of 9-11 challenged our values and we had to fight the tendency to trade our freedoms for perceived security.
------------------------
Is ther ANYTHING that the Alaskan Arse-hole doesn't get wrong??? We DID trade in our freedoms after 911 - or I should say the Cheney White House took them. Anyone remember the warrentless wire-taps, opening our mail, torturing prisoners, holding suspects without counsel, bail or contact with the outside world?

I find it ironic that WaPo is upset Sarah Palin accused the MSM of using this tragedy to push their own agenda, especially after liberals have spent the past five days blaming the tragedy in Tucson on conservative speech. Perhaps if liberal bloggers, pols and their MSM allies don't want to be accused of manufacturing a blood libel, they should refrain from using the tragedy as a vehicle for manufacturing a blood libel.

It seems to me that Palin is always looking for ways to stir controversy and division.
She uses certain phrases like Blood Libel and Death panels to cause hate and to keep people angry.
She is like those mythical creatures who would whisper in the ears of humans to cause upset and tragedy.
And that is her role.
Until her supporters get a better understanding of the manipulation and refuse to play along, she will continue to do that.
Any hopes of any kind of civility will be moot until her supporters learn that they can support her without being blind and mindlessly doing whatever she says. They need to reign her in.

Blood libel describes a horrible lie: the belief that Jews kill Christian children in order to make ritual use of their blood. The libel is nearly a thousand years old, and has been used by anti-Semites through the centuries to justify pogroms, massacres and the destruction of Jews.

For Palin to use that phrase in a complaint about the media, in the aftermath of a mass murder where the primary target was a Jewish woman, is, to put it mildly, the act of a stupid, self-absorbed drama queen.

Doesn't the MSM EVER get tired of Piling on Sarah Palin ???? I don't know of anybody I can ever recall that has taken so much flack from the media as she has. IF and it's a big 'if' she is as uninformed, stupid, awkward, unpolished, and vicious as the media says she is how is it that none of this seems to stick to her ? Could it be that the MSM and the progressive left FEAR her ??? I think so.

Somewhere John McCain is cringing....................................................................................................................................................................again!

BTW, anyone who takes his Second Amendment rights seriously takes his gun to political rallies.
Posted by: ScottinVA

That sounds like a responsible use of a gun. I recall on April 22 '09 a man took a gun to a presidential event. How would the Republicans react if someone had taken a gun to a Bush rally? A political opponent? As I recall, people wearing anti-Bush T-shirts couldn't get into his events. Good article today in the Times, saying it's not the crosshairs--it's the dehumanization of portraying the opposition as unpatriotic and evil. The TP and the Republicans are guilty of this and this has led to an amazing spike in threats to politicians, death threats to the president, and right-wing wackos running taking action against the government.
I hope with this "blood libel" comment on the day of the memorial service that Palin is through. Probably the right-wingers will nominate her for President. She seems like another Goldwater to me. I will be fascinated to see how Republicans respond to her latest.

I find it ironic that WaPo is upset Sarah Palin accused the MSM of using this tragedy to push their own agenda, especially after liberals have spent the past five days blaming the tragedy in Tucson on conservative speech. Perhaps if liberal bloggers, pols and their MSM allies don't want to be accused of manufacturing a blood libel, they should refrain from using the tragedy as a vehicle for manufacturing a blood libel.

I find it ironic that WaPo is upset Sarah Palin accused the MSM of using this tragedy to push their own agenda, especially after liberals have spent the past five days blaming the tragedy in Tucson on conservative speech. Perhaps if liberal bloggers, pols and their MSM allies don't want to be accused of manufacturing a blood libel, they should refrain from using the tragedy as a vehicle for manufacturing a blood libel.

I find it ironic that WaPo is upset Sarah Palin accused the MSM of using this tragedy to push their own agenda, especially after liberals have spent the past five days blaming the tragedy in Tucson on conservative speech. Perhaps if liberal bloggers, pols and their MSM allies don't want to be accused of manufacturing a blood libel, they should refrain from using the tragedy as a vehicle for manufacturing a blood libel.

I find it ironic that WaPo is upset Sarah Palin accused the MSM of using this tragedy to push their own agenda, especially after liberals have spent the past five days blaming the tragedy in Tucson on conservative speech. Perhaps if liberal bloggers, pols and their MSM allies don't want to be accused of manufacturing a blood libel, they should refrain from using the tragedy as a vehicle for manufacturing a blood libel.

This base of support for Palin — maybe not that large, but very passionate, and very powerful in places like the Iowa Republican Caucuses — isn’t going to abandon her just because the Serious People in the GOP laugh her off in favor of blow-dried flip-flopping pols like Mitt Romney or blandly “electable” figures like Tim Pawlenty. To her supporters, mockery is like nectar.

National Review’s Jim Geraghty and Hugh Hewitt provided some proof of this today:

My first thought was that it tied heavily to her appearance; in liberals’ minds, conservatives are supposed to look like the couple from the painting American Gothic: Dour and joyless, aged, spartan and frail. Political leaders aren’t supposed to be young, really good looking women, full of energy, smiles and winks.

Hugh suggested it tied to the contrast between her lifestyle and her critics: “She is the embodiment of the anti-choice, the opposite of every choice that lefty elites have ever made — as to going back home instead of moving to the west coast, having children, having a child with Downs, staying married to one man the whole time, choosing rural or suburban over urban and living a generally conservative lifestyle, working with her hands… That everything she is is the antithesis of everything that liberal urban elites are, so it’s not just enough to say, ‘I disagree with you,’; she has to be repudiated and crushed.”

sharinginck wrote:
"This man was an Independent ...some are right leaning and some left. He was not "leftist", as you put it. However, being leftist is not negative... it means being your brothers keeper; caring for the less fortunate; knowing this country belongs to all of us, not some of us."

That was my post rebutting FishBrain.
And yes, this nut job had NOTHING in common with the values of the Tea Party Movement or Sarah Palin.
He was a pot-smoking left-leaning irrational individual, just like those who, before any evidence is presented, blame the Tea Party Movement and Sarah Palin for his actions.

Where were you when you Leftists were crying out for the blood of George Bush and Dick Cheney? It's different now that you are in power, isn't it? Now such talk needs to be regulated and moderated.

Also, the description you gave of yourself as a Leftist (by which I think you mean Liberal) is summed up well as "useful idiot". The Leftist want to make the poor equal to the rich by stealing what the rich have, thereby making all equally poor. Your empty-headed, bleeding hearts, fall right into their plans.

All you need to do is read some of the "luminaries" of the left, such as Alynsky, Ayers, Jeremiah Wright, and the Community Organizer in Chief himself. It's all about putting power into the hands of a few, who will then tend to the needs of the many.

Is it any wonder that "Liberals" have been shown to give far less to charity than Conservatives?

Oh please, oh please Sarah be the presidential nominee. Please run Sarah run and save us from the "blood libel" those godless libby-er-al commie, Nazi lame-stream pukes are polluting our exceptional country with. We all know that Jesus really wasn't Jewish (sic). We know you don't want none of dem fererners here so save us.

Sidearm Sarah strikes again. She's nothing but a true patriot, much moreso than most of us in her mind, who can say or do no wrong and has no problem shooting innocent animals for sport and putting humans in her cross hairs.

The right's use of this term "blood libel" is anti-Semitic. Palin is not Jewish and often speaks of the United States as a Christian nation. The target of Palin's campaign as well as the alleged shooter, Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, is Jewish. As noted by all major newspapers, Jews (and non-Jews) are pained by, and take offense at use of 'blood libel'"

If they don't want to be accused of spewing hate and dehumanization to the point of inciting some unstable kook to kill somebody, then don't spew hate and dehumanization to the point of having some unstable kook kill somebody.

Conservatives killed Dr. Tiller this way, they almost provoked a mass murder at the Tides Foundation this way and they killed Congresswoman Giffords this way.

It seems this sort of "Stochastic Terrorism" is an effective way for conservatives to deal with their enemies, so we'll probably see this same tactic tried again next week. Beck is probably winding up for it as we speak. Making the current Conservative whine fest even more disgusting.

The fact that Sarah even exists as anything but the butt of SNL jokes says alot about how ridiculous politics is today. As usual both Sarah and the media miss the point. The gunsight did not encourage the Arizona shooter, but the shooting and the gunsight together are encouragment for other shooters to follow Frau Palin's directions to aim straight and fire away.

Ms. Palin is guilty of regularly influencing our current social climate with her rhetoric and chosen images. It is within that social climate that all of us are living - including the deranged shooter. Also living within this social climate are the people who sent death threats to and committed vandalism against members of congress over the last year. And those are only the examples of attack and bullying against elected officials. The unnecessary disrespect, bullying and attacking of people is taking place in many arenas. Is Ms. Palin directly responsible for any of this behavior? Of course not. People are responsible for their own actions.
But Ms. Palin is indeed guilty of inflammatory conduct and is among those directly influencing our social climate.
I believe she just wants to be elected to high office, not to do things that are a negative influence on our social climate. But clearly she does do things that are a negative influence on our social climate, and it is irresponsible, immature, and cowardly of her to defend her mistakes.

Ms. Palin is auditioning for higher office. What I want for our country is people in higher office whose characters are responsible, mature, and courageous, and who lead us in being the best we can be. And when they make mistakes -- as we all do -- to have the good character and the good sense to admit the mistake and to change their actions. This definitely does not describe what we have seen of Ms. Palin.

In response to Fisherman2:
This man was an Independent ...some are right leaning and some left. He was not "leftist", as you put it. However, being leftist is not negative... it means being your brothers keeper; caring for the less fortunate; knowing this country belongs to all of us, not some of us.
Anyone that feels Palin bears responsibility is criticized...but I see, Sarah can invoke William Ayers and make now President Obama, responsible for all he did in the years the president was a young boy. In addition, the "right" condoned this. But to say that Sarah bears no responsibility for the negative climate today, that is somehow sacrilegious. No one has accused her of pulling the trigger but she did "target" Giffords' district and put the cross-hair over it. This is food for someone like Loughner even if in this instance he never saw it. We must take responsibility for the things we do and say. If we are in the public arena, what we do and say has the ability to influence. Man up to this! As Sarah loves to say!

You thought that the REAL VICTIMS in the Tuscon shooting were the six dead, and 14 wounded? Perhaps you thought it was Congresswoman Giffords, Federal Judge Roll, or maybe even that nine year-old girl?

You socialist, un-American, evil, terrorist-loving jerks!

Let us bow our heads and say a prayer for the TRUE VICTIMS of this mass murder: Sarah Palin, and Rush "Oxycontin" Limbaugh! Yes, they have suffered greatly due to uncaring Americans like yourselves not appreciating their sacrifice.

Somewhere there is a victim of gun violence, lying in a vegetative state in a nursing home.
That patient has certain "body functions" that result in a "situation" that requires someone with a strong stomach to "clean-up".
Mrs. Palin, I think you're just the person for the job.

Somewhere there is a victim of gun violence, lying in a vegetative state in a nursing home.
That patient has certain "body functions" that result in a "situation" that requires someone with a strong stomach to "clean-up".
Mrs. Palin, I think you're just the person for the job.

of course this is not Sarah Palin's fault, but a reasonable and rational public figure would be a little more careful with what they say from now on. What if Law Enforcement found a bunch of Republican or Palin worship messages in his house/computer. "Words can have Consequences".

scottinva wrote: "However, at that time, no Muslim group or nation condemned the attack..."
====================================
That is an out and out falsehood, and dangerous one at that. Several Muslim American organizations issued the following joint statement within hours of the attacks:

"American Muslims utterly condemn what are apparently vicious and cowardly acts of terrorism against innocent civilians. We join with all Americans in calling for the swift apprehension and punishment of the perpetrators. No political cause could ever be assisted by such immoral acts."

Here is a link to the U.S. Department of State press release regarding that statement (from 07/22/2002, during the Bush Administration, if you're skeptical):

Democrats/leftist and their propagandist, the left wing media of collusion are so PO'd that Jared Loughner has NO association at all with the Tea Party, Rush Limbaugh, Glen Beck, Fox News, the Tea Party or talk radio...

It turns out that Jared Loughner is a leftist Pot Smoking nut case who also hung out at the most radical leftist website the Daily Kos where the deranged make the most crude, vile and insane comments, the Home of Hate Speech...

But it doesn't stop them from spewing their propaganda crap for the benefit of their ignorant constituents, does it, WP.

Ms. Palin is guilty of regularly influencing our current social climate with her rhetoric and chosen images. It is within that social climate that all of us are living - including the deranged shooter. Also living within this social climate are the people who sent death threats to and committed vandalism against members of congress over the last year. And those are only the examples of attack and bullying against elected officials. The unnecessary disrespect, bullying and attacking of people is taking place in many arenas.

Ms. Palin is indeed guilty of inflammatory conduct.
I believe she just wants to be elected to high office, not to do things that are a negative influence on our social climate. But clearly she does do things that are a negative influence on our social climate, and it is irresponsible, immature, and cowardly of her to defend her mistakes.

Ms. Palin is auditioning for higher office. What I want for our country is people in higher office whose characters are responsible, mature, and courageous, and who lead us in being the best we can be. And when they make mistakes -- as we all do -- they have the good character and the good sense to admit the mistake and to change their actions. This definitely does not describe what we have seen of Ms. Palin.

Why I'm for the Brady Bill
By Ronald Reagan; Ronald Reagan, in announcing support for the Brady bill yesterday, reminded his audience he is a member of the National Rifle Association.
Published: March 29, 1991

LOS ANGELES — "Anniversary" is a word we usually associate with happy events that we like to remember: birthdays, weddings, the first job. March 30, however, marks an anniversary I would just as soon forget, but cannot.

It was on that day 10 years ago that a deranged young man standing among reporters and photographers shot a policeman, a Secret Service agent, my press secretary and me on a Washington sidewalk.

I was lucky. The bullet that hit me bounced off a rib and lodged in my lung, an inch from my heart. It was a very close call. Twice they could not find my pulse. But the bullet's missing my heart, the skill of the doctors and nurses at George Washington University Hospital and the steadfast support of my wife, Nancy, saved my life.

Jim Brady, my press secretary, who was standing next to me, wasn't as lucky. A bullet entered the left side of his forehead, near his eye, and passed through the right side of his brain before it exited. The skills of the George Washington University medical team, plus his amazing determination and the grit and spirit of his wife, Sarah, pulled Jim through. His recovery has been remarkable, but he still lives with physical pain every day and must spend much of his time in a wheelchair.

Thomas Delahanty, a Washington police officer, took a bullet in his neck. It ricocheted off his spinal cord. Nerve damage to his left arm forced his retirement in November 1981.

Tim McCarthy, a Secret Service agent, was shot in the chest and suffered a lacerated liver. He recovered and returned to duty.

Still, four lives were changed forever, and all by a Saturday-night special -- a cheaply made .22 caliber pistol -- purchased in a Dallas pawnshop by a young man with a history of mental disturbance.

This nightmare might never have happened if legislation that is before Congress now -- the Brady bill -- had been law back in 1981.

Named for Jim Brady, this legislation would establish a national seven-day waiting period before a handgun purchaser could take delivery. It would allow local law enforcement officials to do background checks for criminal records or known histories of mental disturbances. Those with such records would be prohibited from buying the handguns.

Democrats/leftist and their propagandist, the left wing media of collusion are so PO'd that Jared Loughner has NO association at all with the Tea Party, Rush Limbaugh, Glen Beck, Fox News, the Tea Party or talk radio...

It turns out that Jared Loughner is a leftist Pot Smoking nut case who also hung out at the most radical leftist website the Daily Kos where the deranged make the most crude, vile and insane comments, the Home of Hate Speech...

But it doesn't stop them from spewing their propaganda crap for the benefit of their ignorant constituents, does it, WP.

Why I'm for the Brady Bill
By Ronald Reagan; Ronald Reagan, in announcing support for the Brady bill yesterday, reminded his audience he is a member of the National Rifle Association.
Published: March 29, 1991

LOS ANGELES — "Anniversary" is a word we usually associate with happy events that we like to remember: birthdays, weddings, the first job. March 30, however, marks an anniversary I would just as soon forget, but cannot.

It was on that day 10 years ago that a deranged young man standing among reporters and photographers shot a policeman, a Secret Service agent, my press secretary and me on a Washington sidewalk.

I was lucky. The bullet that hit me bounced off a rib and lodged in my lung, an inch from my heart. It was a very close call. Twice they could not find my pulse. But the bullet's missing my heart, the skill of the doctors and nurses at George Washington University Hospital and the steadfast support of my wife, Nancy, saved my life.

Jim Brady, my press secretary, who was standing next to me, wasn't as lucky. A bullet entered the left side of his forehead, near his eye, and passed through the right side of his brain before it exited. The skills of the George Washington University medical team, plus his amazing determination and the grit and spirit of his wife, Sarah, pulled Jim through. His recovery has been remarkable, but he still lives with physical pain every day and must spend much of his time in a wheelchair.

Thomas Delahanty, a Washington police officer, took a bullet in his neck. It ricocheted off his spinal cord. Nerve damage to his left arm forced his retirement in November 1981.

Tim McCarthy, a Secret Service agent, was shot in the chest and suffered a lacerated liver. He recovered and returned to duty.

Still, four lives were changed forever, and all by a Saturday-night special -- a cheaply made .22 caliber pistol -- purchased in a Dallas pawnshop by a young man with a history of mental disturbance.

This nightmare might never have happened if legislation that is before Congress now -- the Brady bill -- had been law back in 1981.

Named for Jim Brady, this legislation would establish a national seven-day waiting period before a handgun purchaser could take delivery. It would allow local law enforcement officials to do background checks for criminal records or known histories of mental disturbances. Those with such records would be prohibited from buying the handguns.

OH- I'm 'so called 'left' but Moral and High ground to politicians! WOW ... Most of my concern has been as agaisnt the moral-less left as for anyone else. History bares witness to their deeds as well as those of the so called right...

She's right. In today's political media climate, conservatives are the new Jews.

There's nothing new about this type of scapegoating, except that for a long time after World War II Americans knew better than to do it, because they had the recent example of what happened when the Nazis used it. The burning of the Reichstag was blamed on the communists and other political enemies of the Nazis, and was used to crack down on them. In November 1938 the murder of a Nazi official in Paris by a Jew was used as justification for Kristallnacht and the deportations of Jews to concentration camps.

Apparently, enough time has gone by that we've forgotten the lessons of the past, and scapegoating as a method of political attack is again being used. In actuality, none of the "solutions" being proposed ("reining in" talk radio, forbidding anyone from carrying a firearm within 1000 feet of a government official, etc.) would have done anything to stop this psychopath from committing murder.

The debate we should be having is why it's no longer possible to legally commit an obviously dangerous psychopath like this guy until after they actually commit a crime.

Brady's attempt to curb vitriolic political speech through legislation is absolutely the wrong response.

The correct response is for adults to act like adults. An individual who believes that he or she has the intellect and temperament to lead the country should be expected to use language that demonstrates it. A politician or pundit who wants his/her opinions to be heard by, and taken seriously by, an audience that crosses a broad political spectrum should have the common sense to express those opinions in words that are not offensive to all but a few of the people who hear them.

Turn on the Lehrer Report on PBS. Turn on Meet the Press. There, people who disagree strongly with one and other make persuasive arguments for their opinions day in and day out without resorting to vitriol or demonization.

David Brook (NYT, Lehrer Report) is every bit as conservative as anyone in the Fox News punditry lineup. Unlike the Fox gang, however, Brook does not believe that the essence of conservatism is to attack and demonize those who disagree with him. Thus, while I watch or listen to Beck, Palin, and their Fox News cohorts only by accident (i.e., I'm somewhere other than my home where someone else has tuned in), I read every Brook column and watch him weekly on the Lehrer report. He frequently makes cogent arguments that cause me to change my opinion about one topic or another.

The Becks, Palins, Coulters, and Limbaughs of the world -- and the Olbermanns as well -- cannot influence my opinion on any topic because their use of vitriol demonization means that I will never be part of their audience. They are entertainers whose viewership consists of people who agree with them. They do not inform their viewers. They manipulate them emotionally and radicalize them.

If Palin wants to be treated like a political leader whose opinions merit the attention of the electorate, she need to grow up. Rep Brady does not need to curb her excesses. Sarah Palin needs to curb them.

Talk about chutzpah! First she whips up the right-wing crazies, then, when a paranoid man, undoubtedly affected by the political climate, shoots a Jewish congresswoman, she acts as if she and her TPers are the victims! Sarah, go home.

Thanks Beck, Limbaugh, Palin and the Tea Party for shining the light on the crap in congress and accomplishing SHELLACING PART 1...

WAPO, I see you're following your marching orders from the Journolist which has ordered all of the leftist media of collusion to slur anyone on the right. IT DOESN'T MATTER IF IT'S TRUE just keep the the slurs going...

Looks like the 'baggers finally figured out a talking point to deflect what everyone sees with their own two eyes, i.e., the hate, demonization and dehumanization that the 'baggers direct at very, very specific targets such as Dr. Tiller, the Tides Foundation or Congresswoman Giffords, is an effective way for the 'baggers to get some unstable kook to kill off their enemies.

My question is: "Who will be the next person slated for execution? Have Beck and Palin selected the new target yet?"

Posted by: patposton
"It is astounding that Sarah Palin would put out her stubbornly defensive, accusing statement about the Tucson shooting on the very day that the Congress, President, and nation are ceremonial­ly mourning and honoring the victims. You have to hope that she is just so tone-deaf and self-cente­red she doesn't understand how cruelly inappropri­ate such timing is. You hope that because the alternativ­e is unthinkabl­e--that she chose this day on purpose."

It's almost as astounding as the Leftist hitman tactics against her the very day of the tragedy -- without any facts, without any logic, without any consideration for the victims or the public.

It is very probable that, because she has been under attack for three days, she didn't consider that today was set aside for the purpose of eulogizing the dead. Tell me, what did the Leftist media have to say about her on THAT SAME DAY? What were YOU blogging on that same day?

I recall no media outcry in response to this real hate speech directed at those evil Republicans who were impeaching President Clinton for committing perjury and disgracing his office. Nor did I hear liberal outcry in response to a motion picture depicting the assassination of President Bush.

I do not believe that this shooting is "directly" connected to politics, however I do believe that the inflamatory rhetoric that has been going on ( for some time) does not help.
The bigger question is how does a mentally unsable person get a gun! I am begining to believe that if you cannot pass a certain psycological test( the kind law enforcement and armed service individuals go through)you shouldn't be allowed to own or buy a gun. Call me crazy( ?) but that seems to be a big problem.
Having said that, it always surprises me when Palin comes out with some comment on anything political. The fact that society even allowed this woman to procreate, let alone sees her as a political figure, is astonishing.
Have we not learned our lesson about giving people power that shouldn't be given so much as a permit to drive? Example W. Bush.
What happened to listening to and electing people with gravitas?
Do we actaully beleive that Sarah Palin has this quality?

It is astounding that Sarah Palin would put out her stubbornly defensive, accusing statement about the Tucson shooting on the very day that the Congress, President, and nation are ceremonial­ly mourning and honoring the victims. You have to hope that she is just so tone-deaf and self-cente­red she doesn't understand how cruelly inappropri­ate such timing is. You hope that because the alternativ­e is unthinkabl­e--that she chose this day on purpose.

Sarah blaming the left is another example of her being a divider.
This was an opportunity for her to rise above her usual gun toting tactics and show that she is made of the right stuff. She could not, because she is not. The Katie Couric's interview showed her for what she truly is...uninformed and money hungry.
Instead of taking responsibility or apologizing for anything she said that MAY have contributed to this violent climate in which we find ourselves...she has managed to gather many comments on her Facebook site blaming the left and inciting more anger against the left. The truth is that I was really turned off watching her club a fish to death on prime time TV as well as shooting an innocent deer for prime time consumption. She continuously uses gun terminology for everything and must give in account for these things. Though she is not alone in this behavior, she is a divider and each time she opens her mouth the divide gets wider and wider.
I am appalled at her use of the phrase,"Blood Libel". She was told to use it because I am sure it was not a part of her vocabulary. One can see that she is using the term to conjure up images of blood and hatred. It took her so long to come out and speak, not on the TV but the internet, because someone had to figure out what she should say to hang on to her followers.
Shame on you Sarah. Perhaps you did not put the gun in his hand or ask him to fire...but a little grace and humility goes a lot farther than defending the indefensible. If you were innocent ... then why remove the cross-hair map from your site as soon as you heard the news?
The Media made you a star and those stars never left your eyes. You saw dollar signs and quit the governorship. Eventually your followers will see you for what you are. You are just using them to enrich yourself.
Shame on you!

Posted by: fishman2
"Right wing logic: 19 Muslims killed 3000 people on 9/11, so it is every Muslim's fault and an attack on the USA by the entire religion of Islam. Loughner shoots a Democratic member of Congress and 19 other people and it is only his fault and not political in any way."

Once again I get the pleasure of confronting Leftist illogic.

If 19 Muslims indict the entire Muslim Community, then the leftist Laughner indicts the entire LEFTIE Community. However, at that time, no Muslim group or nation condemned the attack; and many Muslims were filmed dancing in the streets.
THAT is what indicted the Muslim Community.

If politics were a motivator behind Laughner, then they were entirely HIS OWN politics; no one elses.

It is the lame and callous attempt to pin this tragedy on Palin and Consrevatives, FROM DAY ONE, that is what is at issue here.

Posted by: fishman2
"Right wing logic: 19 Muslims killed 3000 people on 9/11, so it is every Muslim's fault and an attack on the USA by the entire religion of Islam. Loughner shoots a Democratic member of Congress and 19 other people and it is only his fault and not political in any way."

Once again I get the pleasure of confronting Leftist illogic.

If 19 Muslims indict the entire Muslim Community, then the leftist Laughner indicts the entire LEFTIE Community. However, at that time, no Muslim group or nation condemned the attack; and many Muslims were filmed dancing in the streets.
THAT is what indicted the Muslim Community.

If politics were a motivator behind Laughner, then they were entirely HIS OWN politics; no one elses.

It is the lame and callous attempt to pin this tragedy on Palin and Consrevatives, FROM DAY ONE, that is what is at issue here.

Palin is her own worst enemy. Blood label, indeed. Like she claims - the shooter choose his own distructive path, so is she choosing her own distructive path. Public opinion of her is based on her actions, her speeches, her politics, her "keep honking while I reload" attitude. Palin opens her mouth and shoots herself in both feet. America has created a monster and Russians are spying on her because she lives just across the street from them.

Gentlewoman:
It is an accustom'd action with her, to seem thus washing her hands. I have known her continue in this a quarter of an hour.

Lady Macbeth:
Yet here's a spot.

Doctor:
Hark, she speaks. I will set down what comes from her, to satisfy my remembrance the more strongly.

Lady Macbeth:
Out, damn'd spot! out, I say!—One; two: why, then 'tis time to do't.—Hell is murky.—Fie, my lord, fie, a soldier, and afeard? What need we fear who knows it, when none can call our pow'r to accompt? —Yet who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him?

Unfortunately for the leftist media of collusion and the illiterate Democrats in congress who can't even read the trillion dollar pork packages they inflict on America, this shooting by a deranged nut case had NOTHING to do with passionate speech or metaphors of ANYBODY, TOO BAD FOR THEM.

But it doesn't stop these bottom fish from "not wasting a crisis" to criticize their opposition, spew their agenda and propaganda.

Hey WP, have you had your JOURNOLIST MEETING today? Where your motto is, "We decide, you listen" the facts be damned...

I think that it's very telling that the original comments by Sheriff Dupnik here in Tucson only referred to the heated political rhetoric on all sides but the Conservatives have taken that as criticism of the Right. Perhaps there is substantial self-recognition there mixed in with the denials.

Anyone that can follow this rambling citizen has my sympathy for your standard is 'very low' she points a finger at those who pointed at her' however the Congresswoman herself had suggested the fear that some of the tactics' out there were dangerous. Could Sarah possibly do any self critique is it possible. Let her run for president I'd love to see the banner
Intellect VS Idiot

Only a deranged or unstable person would put the cross hairs of gun targets over members of Congress, because of a heath care vote!http://voices.washingtonpost.com/44/2011/01/sarah-palin-responds-pundits-s.html?hpid=topnews
The U.S. blamed Palin's crazy RHETORIC on a huge spikes in Death Threats on the POTUS. It's been very strange seeing the right try to twist out of this tradedy! I don't Blame Palin or the Tea Party, but they sure are acting guilty. regards

So let me understand. Giffords is a Jew. And Giffords objected to Palin's targeting her, saying that words have consequences. So Palin now says that Giffords objections amount to "Blood Libel," The blood libel is a false accusation that Jews sacrifice Christian children either to use the blood for various "medicinal" purposes or to prepare Passover Matzoth (unleavened bread) or for vengeance... and mock crucifixions.
Palin is a dangerous, deranged idiot. Someone at least buy her a dictionary.

Message to Sarah. When you place a map on your website having a rifle gunsight placed over Rep. Giffords district. And when you tell folks that if you don't succeed in ousting a political opponent to "reload". Words have consequences Sarah. When conservative talk radio began their anti-government campaign in the 1990's, a deranged person decided to blow up the Oklahoma Federal Building...words DO have consequences Sarah.

what would Palin say if she knew that her name and photo was on a published crosshairs list; that someone was saying: "she's still standing, lock and reload."

Do you think she would say in her inimitable Palinesque style: "Wowie!, Zowie! What an exhilarating challenge!". And what would Beck, Limbaugh and the other talk-show inciters say if the same happened to them.

Anyone that can follow this rambling citizen has my sympathy for your standard is 'very low' she points a finger at those who pointed at her' however the Congresswoman herself had suggested the fear that some of the tactics' out there were dangerous. Could Sarah possibly do any self critique is it possible. Let her run for president I'd love to see the banner
Intellect VS Idiot

Ms. Palin is either a truly ignorant person (for settling on the phrase "blood libel" for her latest provocation) or a truly malicious one (for settling on the phrase "blood libel" for her latest provocation). Either way, her wisest counselor - the quiet one who never gets listened to - should whisper insistently in her good ear, "this isn't going well. You should just express condolences and simply abandon the field." But that's not her way: she just cannot take any of this elitist crap sitting down. She has to fight back, hold her own, fire away, in her own distinctively ignorant, malicious way (right: they're not exclusive categories).

Who knows what her involvement was in the killings? But I do think we can all agree with Laura Bush when she says that Sarah Palin brings nothing positive to the national debate. Whether it's her quitting on the Alaskan people who trusted, her encouraging her daughter sexual mischief, or her using her disabled son Trig for political gain - this woman in no way personifies what any of us want for our kids, or the future of this country.

Who knows what her involvement was in the killings? But I do think we can all agree with Laura Bush when she says that Sarah Palin brings nothing positive to the national debate. Whether it's her quitting on the Alaskan people who trusted, her encouraging her daughter sexual mischief, or her using her disabled son Trig for political gain - this woman in no way personifies what any of us want for our kids, or the future of this country.

Right wing logic: 19 Muslims killed 3000 people on 9/11, so it is every Muslim's fault and an attack on the USA by the entire religion of Islam. Loughner shoots a Democratic member of Congress and 19 other people and it is only his fault and not political in any way.

Is it any wonder it took Palin six years to graduate college?
Palin has Giffords on a hit list. Giffords is the center of an assassination plot. Palin does not understand why the media is jumping on her about having a hit list with Giffords name on it. Palin states she is the focus of a blood libel. Giffords is Jewish. Can anyone with half a brain see why Palin has no brain?

More and more republicans regret McCain's introduction of the barricuda to the American public. His campaign was so desperate to win that they let her out of her cage. Now they can't get her back in. However, the public is getting sick of the machismo political rhetoric. And the "blood libel" choice of words shows what a blockhead she is.

More and more republicans regret McCain's introduction of the barricuda to the American public. His campaign was so desperate to win that they let her out of her cage. Now they can't get her back in. However, the public is getting sick of the machismo political rhetoric. And the "blood libel" choice of words shows what a blockhead she is.

Posted by: Angryman
"She's the victim of her own stupidity, and appearantly, SO ARE YOU!!
And nobody is saying she is DIRECTLY responsible, what I'm saying, and I can only speak for me, is that she should have just came straight out and apologized for even the appearance of her rhetoric matching up with this guys actions! They guys a nut!! The problem is, it doesn't take much to incite a bunch of nuts and her rhetoric is inciting the nuts!! What normal person shows up to a political rally armed with guns? NUTS!!"

Of course you are directly accusing her of inciting this LEFTIST nut to violence against a moderate Democrat. You Leftists are attempting to discredit her and alienate the American people from her so as to neutralize her as the political power you fear so much.

I, for one, will not be cowed by your insistence on PC speech. It is unfortunate that Sarah Palin took down those perfectly legitimate web pages, and that she bothered to answer the braindead sophistry of the Left. I only assume she is hoping to make mincemeat out of you for your sutpidity.

BTW, anyone who takes his Second Amendment rights seriously takes his gun to political rallies. However, we do not use our weapons at polling places to intimidate voters like Leftists do.

Palin is the greatest cancer to the GOP today without doubt and she's never going to miss a chance to get up on the stage. However, has there been any actual evidence that Loughner connected to the TEA Party? I haven't heard any such thing.

Rep. Paul Kanjorski, D-Pa had this to say about Florida's new Republican Governor Rick Scott on October 23:

"That Scott down there that's running for governor of Florida. Instead of running for governor of Florida, they ought to have him and shoot him. Put him against the wall and shoot him. He stole billions of dollars from the United States government and he's running for governor of Florida. He's a millionaire and a billionaire. He's no hero. He's a damn crook. It's just we don't prosecute big crooks."

Shot, NO!! JAIL, YES!! But definately NOT the Governor or Florida! But they elected him, they have to deal with him until he wins again or is voted out!! Somebody guilty of defrauding the government of millions of dollars SHOULD NOT BE ABLE TO HOLD PUBLIC OFFICE!!

Nice to finally hear an adult voice. One of reason. One of sound judgement. Presidential. Gov. Palin rises above the fray. This is what a Presidential Address is supposed to sound like. No doubt Pres. Obama will follow Gov. Palin's lead and sound the same.

"It is in the hour when our values are challenged that we must remain resolved to protect those values," Palin said. "Recall how the events of 9-11 challenged our values and we had to fight the tendency to trade our freedoms for perceived security. And so it is today."

Nice to finally hear an adult voice. One of reason. One of sound judgement. Presidential. Gov. Palin rises above the fray. This is what a Presidential Address is supposed to sound like. No doubt Pres. Obama will follow Gov. Palin's lead and sound the same.

Ms. Palin is either a truly ignorant person (for settling on the phrase "blood libel" for her latest provocation) or a truly malicious one (for settling on the phrase "blood libel" for her latest provocation). Either way, her wisest counselor - the quiet one who never gets listened to - should whisper insistently in her good ear, "this isn't going well. You should just express condolences and simply abandon the field." But that's not her way: she just cannot take any of this elitist crap sitting down. She has to fight back, hold her own, fire away, in her own distinctively ignorant, malicious way (right: they're not exclusive categories).

I have nothing against hunters. But Palin's targeting a beautiful elk and then bludgeoning a fish to death are powerful images of her mentality. These might be everyday practices, but I don't find it to be entertaining or informative tv. And McCain's desperate attempt to win, ushered in this loudmouth. She has degenerated the political discourse. We want solutions not machismo.

Posted by: Tourist
"So we can call for Second Amendment solutions to Sarah Palin and put her in our Crosshairs/Surveyor's sights (whatever) and there is no problem? We can show up at book signings loaded for bear, and that will show we are just God-fearing, patriotic Americans (especially if we wear big crosses and red, white and blue jewelry)? Lock and Load! And, we can stomp on those that dissent? None of this should prove bothersome to those who advocate it for the Queen of Violent Metaphors. Don't Retreat! Reload!"

You can try; but most of us at those book signings are better armed than you are; and we actually know how to shoot.

Were those merely violent METAPHORS on the signs to assassinate President Bush? I don't think so.

Isn't it interesting when the shoe is on the other foot. Or a better metaphor might me this one: You've just been shot with your own gun.

I have nothing against hunters. But Palin's targeting a beautiful elk and then bludgeoning a fish to death are powerful images of her mentality. These might be everyday practices, but I don't find it to be entertaining or informative tv. And McCain's desperate attempt to win, ushered in this loudmouth. She has degenerated the political discourse. We want solutions not machismo.

Posted by: Angryman
"Get over yourself Sarah, YOU ARE NOT THE VICTIM!! "

Of course Sarah Palin is not the victim of Laughner; she is clearly the victim of you rabid Leftists attempting to, mindlessly and without a shred of evidence, place the LIBEL of this spilled BLOOD on her.

You forget one thing the rest of America sees clearly: LAUGHNER IS ONE OF YOURS!

He shot the congressman because she was too conservative for him.

Braindead Leftists.

Posted by: ScottinVA | January 12, 2011 10:39 AM
==========================================
She's the victim of her own stupidity, and appearantly, SO ARE YOU!!

And nobody is saying she is DIRECTLY responsible, what I'm saying, and I can only speak for me, is that she should have just came straight out and apologized for even the appearance of her rhetoric matching up with this guys actions! They guys a nut!! The problem is, it doesn't take much to incite a bunch of nuts and her rhetoric is inciting the nuts!! What normal person shows up to a political rally armed with guns? NUTS!!

If you really want to know who is responsible for the racism and class division and hatred in this country, look no further than Obama. He is aided by Pelosi and Reid. The progressive/liberal/marxist politicians and media in this country are trying to destroy us. By the looks of the posts, they are succeeding. However, many Americans have caught on to the ploy and are getting rid of those politicians by VOTING them out of office.

The cretinous Palin and her rotten crew of bigoted associates have delivered blood libel after blood libel against Muslims, even demanding that a mosque not be constructed.

She's not the one to talk about blood libels, especially after her rants and those of the other national reactionaries motivated Loughner to kill and wound so many people, including Congressowoman Giffords.

Here is how her mob organization works. They air incindiary advertisements 24/7 on TV and radio, courtesy of the Chamber of Commerce. They mob the offices of their victim. They call and hassle endlessly. They lie indiscriminately. When a nut case gets the idea and pulls the trigger, they blame the nut case. Gee, I wonder of this nut-case ever would have heard of his U.S. Representative if not for all the above listed activities. What blatant nonsense Palin is spouting. She provides the name and the motive, the NRA provides the weapon, the Chamber of Commerce pays for it, and then they claim total innocence.

If Palin can't take the heat (which is well-deserved in this case) she should move back to Alaska. I'm sure her henchmen and women are already writing the second book about how "persecuted" poor little Sarah is.

I think Ms. Palin should retain services of a good criminal lawyer. At this point it doesn’t matter what the “lamestream media” have to say. It all depends on what Jared Laughner has to say. If he says that he wanted to impress Jodie Foster nobody will take him seriously. However, if he choses to mention Palin’s name then the federal investigators will be all over it. If the feds find even a single McCain-Palin bumper sticker in Laughner’s house, they will be booking flights to Alaska sooner than your can say “vast right wing conspiracy”.

So we can call for Second Amendment solutions to Sarah Palin and put her in our Crosshairs/Surveyor's sights (whatever) and there is no problem? We can show up at book signings loaded for bear, and that will show we are just God-fearing, patriotic Americans (especially if we wear big crosses and red, white and blue jewelry)? Lock and Load! And, we can stomp on those that dissent? None of this should prove bothersome to those who advocate it for the Queen of Violent Metaphors. Don't Retreat! Reload!

Rep. Paul Kanjorski, D-Pa had this to say about Florida's new Republican Governor Rick Scott on October 23:

"That Scott down there that's running for governor of Florida. Instead of running for governor of Florida, they ought to have him and shoot him. Put him against the wall and shoot him. He stole billions of dollars from the United States government and he's running for governor of Florida. He's a millionaire and a billionaire. He's no hero. He's a damn crook. It's just we don't prosecute big crooks."

Sarah Palin had a choice. She could either take the high road and express her sympathies for the tragedy at hand and to be of help if asked or she could get down in the dirt and have a fight and muck it up. Sadly, she chose the latter. Even if she truly believes her own words and that she has been slandered, now is not the time for the fight. We are only days from the tragedy and the families and the country is still in pain. Her choice shows that she lacks judgment and leadership skills. The timing and the content of her statement only serves to fuel fire to the discussion.

There will be a time very soon to respond to her critics, but not on the day of the memorial.

On her facebook page, the notoriously thin-skinned Sarah Palin has her lackeys hard at work scrubbing her website for anything remotely negative about her.

The staffer who does the editing leaves this horrifying and disgusting comment up:

"It's ok. Christina Taylor Green (the nine year-old girl who was killed) was probably going to end up a left wing bleeding heart liberal anyway. Hey, as 'they' say, what would you do if you had the chance to kill Hitler as a kid? Exactly"

"...said vigorous debates are a cherished tradition. But she said after the election, both sides find common ground, even though they disagree." There is a clear distinction between "vigorous debate" and including hate or symbols of hate in that debate. Palin doesn't want to see that distinction. It suits her purpose to not see the difference.

Posted by: pathfinder12
"Yet Palin was one of the first to speak up against the building of a mosque near ground zero because the terrorists were Muslim and the mosque is a Muslim place of worship, and so Muslims must all be terrorists.

When the now speaker of the House refers to an opponent as a "dead man";...when Oberman lists "worst people"...When Palin puts cross hairs over congress people's names, we should be upset.

We should always seek truth, regardless of how painful, but we should also ask for civility from our elected officials, and from one another."

I would really like to see a quote to back up your claim that Sarah Palin called all Muslims terrorists.

I would also like to know how one seeks truth when one is afraid to offend anyone.

You Leftists have come a long way in creating a PC world in which everyone must say and think only what you deem appropriate.

The use of the term "blood libel" to describe this "witch hunt" is entirely apporpriate AND accurate.

"...said vigorous debates are a cherished tradition. But she said after the election, both sides find common ground, even though they disagree." There is a clear distinction between "vigorous debate" and including hate or symbols of hate in that debate. Palin doesn't want to see that distinction. It suits her purpose to not see the difference.

Obviously you are not familiar with Jewish history. From the Zionism and Israel Encyclopedic Dictionary:

"Blood Libel - The blood libel is a false accusation that Jews sacrifice Christian children either to use the blood for various "medicinal" purposes or to prepare Passover Matzoth (unleavened bread) or for vengeance and mock crucifixions. It is one of the central fables of Anti-Semitism of the older (middle ages) type. The blood libel is a phenomenon of medieval and modern Christian anti-Semitism, but spread to the Middle East as early as 1775, when there was a blood libel in Hebron. A second blood libel occurred in Damascus in 1840 and one occurred in Cyprus in the same year. As the blood libel was the subject of folk ballads and literature, it was not simply a religious superstition in Europe, but a staple of popular culture, like most anti-Semitic prejudices.

"Blood libels in the both the West and the East were generally occasions for large-scale persecution and judicial murders of Jews, as well as the basis for expulsions and pogroms. There have been about 150 cases of blood libel that were actually tried by Catholic authorities, and many other rumored cases that never came to trial."

The left had already labelled all that disagree with Obama and the Dems White Trash Racist....and now they are calling them murderers. This will not sit well with the vast majority of Americans who voted against the Democrats in the midterms. The liberals and the Democrats have no shame as they attempt to use the tragic shooting of a Congresswoman as a political campaign tool......these Dems have no moral fiber at all.....no wonder America turned against them.

Yet Palin was one of the first to speak up against the building of a mosque near ground zero because the terrorists were Muslim and the mosque is a Muslim place of worship, and so Muslims must all be terrorists.

The hypocrisy on both sides has to stop. Hopefully, Obama will speak to that. It should not take an attempted suicide and the killing of 6 innocent individuals to make all stop and ask if our rhetoric is over the top and damaging.

When the now speaker of the House refers to an opponent who voted for health care as a "dead man" we should be upset. When Oberman lists "worst people" as if they are truly harming us, we should be upset. When Palin puts cross hairs over congress people's names, we should be upset.

We should always seek truth, regardless of how painful, but we should also ask for civility from our elected officials, and from one another.

Posted by: DCSteve1
"For the record, Scott: Loughtner shot a congressWOMAN, not a congressman. Your inability to get that basic fact straight goes far to explain how you came up with the utterly bizarre notion that the left is to blame for this tragedy."

Nice attempt to avoid the actual ISSUE, Stevie; but, just to demonstrate your PC induced ignorance, I will attempt the unlikely: the education of a Loonie Leftist.

"Man" -- Greek: anthropos -- a human being, one of the human race.

She is a congressman is perfectly proper syntax and grammar unless you were indoctrinated in government schools.

You still have not convinced anyone how a pot-smoking LEFTIST nut case listened to Sarah Palin and shot a woman he had been obsessed with since 2007.

But what are little things like FACTS and LOGIC to a Kool-aid drinker like you, eh?

Blood libel can exist with or without Jews around. It wasn't invented for them although most "blood libels", or false accusations of murder, frequently for religious purposes, are usually made about Jews. We cannot help but note that today the same sort of blood libels are told of Holy Rollers ~ this case in point.

On the other hand Antisemitism ALWAYS refers to the attacks made against Jews for being Jews ~ whether religious, cultural, social, national or whatever.

It's good to keep the terms separetely in mind lest you someday imagine that you can refer to "antisemitism against Arabs", which it doesn't, or not refer to a "blood libel" against persons of another religion, which it most certainly can.

It is also a very good idea to avoid associating with anyone from the Atlantic (magazine), particularly Andrew Sullivan.

Sarah Palin's motives are amazingly transparent. She's self-serving and self-aggrandzing in a way that contradicts her own values.

She tweets and speaks about "god, truth, and justice." But what words/energy/actions does she put out into the world? Nothing but divisiveness, anger, fingerpointing, vitriol, and self-serving rhetoric.

Nothing in her communication or actions demonstrates that she is a person of real faith or enlightenment, except where faith can be used as a wedge issue and a weapon.

Her own Bible says, "Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but do not have love, I have become a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal."

Her actions give the lie to her rhetoric. She is a loud clanging gong with no substance and the energy that she contributes to the social climate in this nation is negative and destructive.

Thanks to John McCain's desperation to acquire the presidency, we are now afflicted with the likes of Sarah Palin and the rise of violent rhetoric. If he wouldn't have chosen her, she'd still be there in Alaska dressing her kill.

glenmayne ~ your friend McGinniss made the mistake of being on the same side as Dave Letterman and several others who decided that Sarah's children were appropriate targets, particularly the baby.

The kind of stuff Mc mentions is far less abusive than what you people have done.

It's really coloring the way I look at Democrats you know. Before you were just different politically but not that different and now I really do have to deal with you as if you are a bunch of perverts ~ very dangerous perverts too.

glenmayne ~ your friend McGinniss made the mistake of being on the same side as Dave Letterman and several others who decided that Sarah's children were appropriate targets, particularly the baby.

The kind of stuff Mc mentions is far less abusive than what you people have done.

It's really coloring the way I look at Democrats you know. Before you were just different politically but not that different and now I really do have to deal with you as if you are a bunch of perverts ~ very dangerous perverts too.

Blood libel is a term specifically coined to denote lies used to slander Jews and incite others to target them as evil. Giffords is Jewish, and was targeted by Sarah Palin with an ad placing Giffords in crosshairs (much like the anti-abortionists used to do with abortion doctors they targeted for assassination). Yet somehow Sarah is the victim of a "blood libel" here.

And the nutjobs wonder why decent Americans despise this Neanderthal of the North? Really???

Bevhome writes, "If you are going to blame Palin it is necessary to blame Obama too.Obama has been spouting hatred since before he was pres.By now everyone has seen his call to punish the enemy (Americans), bring guns to knife fights, etc.After hearing Obama's war cries, my husband and I changed our voting affiliation from Dem to Independent and will definately not vot for Obama in the next election."

You don't think you're kidding anybody with that line, do you? You didn't vote for Obama in the last election either. You are as delusional as Ms Palin.

Be sure to quote Reagan. It wins everytime.
Congresswoman Giffords specifically stated last March that Palin's gun target map could lead to certain consequences. Last weekend the Congresswoman was shot in the head.

Sarah Palin needs to 'man up' and face these words from Congresswoman Giffords.

Tell me, Hispana, how is the weather on YOUR planet? Given how virtually every word of your rant is 180 degrees removed from fact, I'm guessing it's summer where you are...

If you really are on Earth, then all I can say is that you're going to be bitterly disappointed by the 2012 election results!

Posted by: DCSteve1 | January 12, 2011 11:05

=======================================
Your statement depicts your total ignorance. And it is full of stereo types. What is it, you can't believe that a Hispanic has any degree of intelligence to make comments in this blog? That is the problem with many of you and specially Liberals and Democrats.

Mrs. Palin is a common sense down to earth individual that is attracting many in this country and you know it and are so afraid! She touches those of us that love our country and the values that are slipping too fast under this liberal socialist regime. And in 2010 we reclaimed our country and will finish our deed in 2012.

Blood libel is a term specifically coined to denote lies used to slander Jews and incite others to target them as evil. Giffords is Jewish, and was targeted by Sarah Palin with an ad placing Giffords in crosshairs (much like the anti-abortinists used to do with abortion doctors they targeted for assassination). Yet somehow Sarah is the victim of a "blood libel" here.

And the nutjobs wonder why decent Americans despise this Neanderthal of the North? Really???

"should be condemned as a single act of violence, by a single unstable individual."
-----
Brilliant! Only 3 days to agree on a wording for the plan of defense. Does the operative charge by the number of times this gets quoted?

Besides, 'single act' implicitly supported by a few more 'unstable' individuals.

Not the six people killed and 14 others wounded by, yes, a deranged gunman.

And we all know that when it comes to deranged gunman, who for whatever reasons was able to possess a semiautomatic weapon with 30 round clips, and able to purchase over 100 rounds of shells, we all know that we shouldn't try to inhibit deranged people from possessing these "weapons of mass destruction.

Because, when we do attempt to place restrictions for automatic and semiautomatic weapons, oversized clips, hollow point and armor piercing bullets, it might, according to some, be unconstitutional according to the 2nd Amendment.

So where do these people who are casualties of this deranged killer think they are?

The real victims are people like Sarah Palin, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Mark Levin, Glenn Beck and others like them.

And we, and the families gunned down by this deranged killer, acting like liberal, socialist, communists, owe them an apology!

"“We will not be stopped from celebrating the greatness of of our country and our foundational freedoms by those who mock its greatness by being intolerant of differing opinion and seeking to muzzle dissent with shrill cries of imagined insults,"

Like LIPSTICK ON A PIG, Sarah? Your people sure turned that into an imagined insult. Hypocrite.

Labman57 -
Typical. 6 people die, several others are critically wounded ... and Palin decides to play the role of the maligned victim.

Angle, Palin, Limbaugh, Beck, et al. doth protest too much
=======================
Perhaps she is playing the role of the maligned victim because she IS a maligned victim of a Leftist blood libel. She had nothing to do with the shootings, or motivating Loghner, who is emerging as a half-Jewish, left-libertarian pothead who voted for Obama in 2008.

Palin's 8 minute statement is powerful and articulate and is also a ringing defense of conservatives, Christian believers, Red State people, and countless people in the past so smeared in an organized blood libel.

The Left tried using Alinskyite demonization tactics and gotcaught at it. (Old Saul believed the blood libel could be a potent weapon progressives could use against their foes)

I admire Sarah for her ability to parlay her two chest orbs, pretty face and shapely money maker into a vibrant political career, but the wrinkles on her face in that video and haggard looking neck are a sign that she is just about done here. When she declines to run in 2012 we will all hear the death knell for her 15 minutes of fame spread far and wide across this country. You've got to hand it to her though, she raked in cash from everyone during her few moments in the spotlight. Kind of amazing when you think about it and just goes to show you how this country can make a star out of just about anyone. Congrats Sarah!

I admire Sarah for her ability to parlay her two chest orbs, nice body and money maker into a vibrant political career, but the wrinkles on her face in that video and haggard looking neck and a sign that she is just about done here. When she declines to run in 2012 we will all hear the death knell for her 15 minutes of fame spread far and wide across this country. You've got to hand it to her though, she raked in cash from everyone during her few moments in the spotlight. Kind of amazing when you think about it and just goes to show you how this country can make a star out of just about anyone. Congrats Sarah!

I notice that Ms. Palin issues pronouncements on video from her home. Her points are apparently beyond question and in need of no further clarification like most mortal political figures who have to submit to being interviewed. Who else do we know who releases occasional video statements from their cave, I mean home?

I also notice how she tried to slip this one in before the memorial service in Tucson at which the President will later speak in order to dominate today's news cycle and as a "preemptive strike" if you will against anything the President might say to try to promote healing and reconciliation.

BLOOD LIBEL! DO ANY OF YOU RETARDICANS KNOW WHAT THAT MEANS? Obviously not! Poor Sarah's gonna commit suicide if some of you don't stop her. She's coming unhinged from the weight of deception and the revelations about her true nature. One of you good ole boy's need to man up!

You are SLANDEROUS and full of lies. No one in Sarah Palin's Facebook page has posted such comments as the one you just mentioned and the few that visit this site to post trash like yours are reprimanded immediately by Sarah's fans.

Americans most of the them especially the Obama Followers are as dumb as dirt, they lost there A--es in the voting booths they can't stand that they are ousted from there seats. Sarah will be the first woman President an Jan Brewer is gonna kick all there a--es out of office they are threatened by her because she represents a new ERA wants to ousted all of them Wall Street an Health Care Insurance an Oil Cartel Banks an evil Monopolies are done they have all bankrupted our country to be a 3rd world Nation.

Ok, you have your talking points tea-baggers and Palin apologists. Insert "blood libel" into every post, comment, letter and rant.

Remember, Sarah is the victim here. NOT the 9 year old girl that was murdered. It's all about, and always has been about, Sarah Palin. Our thoughts and prayers go out to you Sarah. We can only hope you can somehow get through this tragedy that happened to you.

Shame on the mean spirited leftists. Blaming the Tea Party and it's millions of honest,hard working, concerned citizens for this shooting is like blaming donuts for Rosie O.Donnell for being mean, fat and ugly.

Whether we believe it or not, whether we like it or not, WORDS DO MATTER and I, for one, hope we can tone down the rhetoric that has ramped up in the last several years. This is a very unnecesssary and horrific lesson to learn, and I hope these wind bags will tone down their speech, and start using language that will bring us together, not separate us more and more. Most of us want freedom and liberty and love of fellow man, but you sure wouldn't know it by listening to the fear mongers Beck, Palin, Hannity and the like. Don't give into fear! Let us move forward as a united peoples that want peace and prosperity!

***If Sarah is not to partly blame for this turn of events, then why did her SARAHPac take down the crosshairs image???? Hmmmmm?????

(1) Where was the sheriff? He knew this guy was a problem (dozens of reports on him in recent days), and he had been notified of the Representative's event well in advance. He could have had a car with a deputy on the scene.

(2) If one individual with his own piece had been on the scene in time this'd been over before 19 people were shot by the leftwing doper with the gun.

It did turn out that the fellow who took down the shooter had a piece with him ~ and your boys in SLATE criticized him for that.

Hmm.

You guys wouldn't know George Soros would you? How about this puke in the NYT, or maybe the funny looking fascist on MSNBC?

You know those guys? They don't care about the shooting ~ just political hay.

Left or right wing, why can't people just be human beings? there is so much bigotry, hatred, ignorance and childish aims in this country today. People died! Are you folks that numb to real life? What is this country becoming?

What if she did? What a disaster for you and your fellow whackjobs. You'd have to find a whole new target for your demented hate-filled diatribes, delusional rants, and, yes, your blood libel.

Within moments of the shooting, before any facts were known, the Lib haters were out in force claiming that Palin had blood on her hands for this. Yes, the term "blood libel" is quite apt to describe the disgraceful actions of the delusional morons of the Left.

Gabby Giffords herself complained about Palin's gun sight / cross hairs, and I heard many complaints in the media. Giffords was clearly frightened about the atmosphere in her district and the nation. The guy that did this raises precious metal based currency and fears of government control. The hot burning tar from this event has stuck hard to America's current extreme right. Palin acknowledge that the map with the gun sight / cross hairs should not have been on her web site when she removed it in response to the assassination attempt. Rather than reflect on the state of political discourse here. Palin and her crew, even the comparatively responsible columnists here at the post go on the attack.

"Although I do not believe that any images for rhetoric singularly contributed to or caused this heinous act, we should all take this opportunity to come together as Americans, rather than just conservative and liberals, to change our volatile political climate and bring our country together for the common good. Although I am uncompromising in my support of our Constitution, including our right to free speech and to bear arms, I believe we can reach solutions to our differences in a civil and responsible manner. And that our politicians can show leadership and character at a time when our country needs it most. I am willing to come to table to meet this goal, and my prayers go out to the victims of this terrible tragedy."

When Palin gets serious about addressing important issues she will augment her handlers' Facebook and Twitter posts and scripted video commentary by actually showing some intellectual curiosity about the how's and why's of issues.
Pure poseur. A front-running harpy without a clue.

Your speech was so inspiring showing your intelligence, sharpness and class. It has been very well received by many who have flooded your Facebook site to comment. This is what we expect of a true leader unlike many that we have around including our current President.

To the liberal media, commentators here and the WAPO:

Your behavior is totally disgraceful and I have begun to wander if all of you are severely touched in your heads with your continuing attacks on Governor Palin and Conservatives. You still say that she doesn't get it, but WE say that it is you people that are bringing shame to this country. Not only you show total lack of civility and class, but your intelligence is questionable. As much as Sarah has been accused of ignorance you all show to the world that you are the ones that in your snubbery and elitism lack any sense. And guess what, we, the american people see through your charade.

You DO NOT connect with a great number of americans and that is why we voted you out in 2010 and will do it again 2012.

It is so transparent that all of you are so AFRAID of your loss of power that are resulting to yes, BLOOD LIBEL, in your frenzy. And common sense people in this country will remember this!! You can count on it!

SHAMEFUL BEHAVIOR is being repudiated by many of us!!!

Posted by: Hispana | January 12, 2011 10:56 AM"

Tell me, Hispana, how is the weather on YOUR planet? Given how virtually every word of your rant is 180 degrees removed from fact, I'm guessing it's summer where you are...

If you really are on Earth, then all I can say is that you're going to be bitterly disappointed by the 2012 election results!

Many posters have pointed out that "Blood Libel" has a very specific meaning, which has nothing to do with killing random strangers or politicians. To Review: it refers to the once widespread belief among European Christians that Jews ritually murder Christian children to use their blood in baking matzos. There were thousands of lynchings and pogroms on this pretext over the centuries. The last formal trial for this supposed crime took place in Kiev in 1913. A couple of Arab leaders brought it up it in the 1970's and '80's. In my nearly 60 years I have never seen the term used any other way. Palin, or whoever wrote her statement, clearly didn't know what Blood Libel means. Words have consequences, and the consequence of these ones are that we Know Palin for a careless trifler.

Why has the media not blamed the DailyKos for putting targets on their map? A target was put on Giffords as well as the DailyKos statement that "she is dead to me."

It is so stupid and so telling of the media that they name people as responsible for the deeds of a pyscho who was himself a lefty!! Indications point to his being anti-Jewish.

Obama and the progressive/liberal/marxists in our government have said many more alaming things than Palin, Beck and the Tea Party put together. Americans have taken note and we condemn the media for their attacks. The media has "acted stupidly" to quote Obama.

"...the former Alaska governor's response could have repercussions for her political future."

No question.

Whatever the facts, Palin's brand has now been tainted by the "ick factor" -- the death knell for political ambitions.

Mainstream Republicants will shun her, and some tea partiers may avoid her, as well. No one wants to be associated with someone whose rhetoric has opened her up to the kinds of accusations now being aired.

Sarah Palin's 15 minutes may have stretched to an hour, but she's now going to find herself cancelled.

Is it any wonder it took Palin six years to graduate college?
Palin has Giffords on a hit list. Giffords is the center of an assassination plot. Palin does not understand why the media is jumping on her about having a hit list with Giffords name on it. Palin states she is the focus of a blood libel. Giffords is Jewish. Can anyone with half a brain see why Palin has no brain?

Mobster wisdom tells us never to bring a knife to a gun fight. But what does political wisdom say about bringing a gun to a knife fight?

That’s exactly what Barack Obama said he would do to counter Republican attacks “If they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun.
==================================

Can you imagine what the liberals would have posted if Sarah had said this?

.............

Oh come on, Diaper Boy. It's taken from a line from a movie- The Untouchables, with Sean Connery.

Most Americans are smart enough to understand the difference between an occasional random use of a phrase involving fighting or violence, WHICH, FACE IT, WE ALL DO, and the GOP's and teabaggers' systematic use of violence-laden, gun, combat and battle-adoring, inflammatory language used to play upon peoples' most base fears and their darkest instincts.

Answer: It isn't, except to enrich the silly pundits on both sides of the debate who need to pump-up their ratings to stay alive, and they don't generate a lot of dollars in the big scheme of things.

Instead of blaming Sarah Palin or Barack Obama for the latest nut-job's tragic veer into a rea-life remake of a video game, how about let's get back to solving the problem of where everyone's next meal is going to come from.

Just look at all the rabid comments, mostly posted by the liberal left....does anybody believe that this will tone down the rhetoric?? This will continue until such time as this present administration is booted out of office....what was once a great nation is being torn apart by the stupid rhetoric from both sides, and promoted by the liberal media....sad!

Your speech was so inspiring showing your intelligence, sharpness and class. It has been very well received by many who have flooded your Facebook site to comment. This is what we expect of a true leader unlike many that we have around including our current President.

To the liberal media, commentators here and the WAPO:

Your behavior is totally disgraceful and I have begun to wander if all of you are severely touched in your heads with your continuing attacks on Governor Palin and Conservatives. You still say that she doesn't get it, but WE say that it is you people that are bringing shame to this country. Not only you show total lack of civility and class, but your intelligence is questionable. As much as Sarah has been accused of ignorance you all show to the world that you are the ones that in your snubbery and elitism lack any sense. And guess what, we, the american people see through your charade.

You DO NOT connect with a great number of americans and that is why we voted you out in 2010 and will do it again 2012.

It is so transparent that all of you are so AFRAID of your loss of power that are resulting to yes, BLOOD LIBEL, in your frenzy. And common sense people in this country will remember this!! You can count on it!

Blood libel (also blood accusation[1][2]) refers to a false accusation or claim[3][4][5] that religious minorities, almost always Jews, murder children to use their blood in certain aspects of their religious rituals and holidays.[1][2][6] Historically, these claims have–alongside those of well poisoning and host desecration–been a major theme in European persecution of Jews.[

The words that she has chosen to use in this tragedy does not match this tragedy.

I don't understand how putting up crosshairs on political figures and extolling people "not to retreat but RELOAD" as Palin did or pushing for "second amendment solutions" as Sharon Angle did or talking about how participating in the Census could be used by the Government to put people in "reeducation camps" as Michelle Bachman did or telling people that "the Democrats want nothing less than to run a police state" as Glenn Beck did or warning people to "be very afraid of what the Democrats are doing to this country" as Sean Hannity did might be seen as influencing unstable people to unnnaturally fear elected officials.

It seems unfair to tell politicians and members of the media that words have consequences - only people who spend their lives dealing with words and messaging and trying to influence other people would have any idea that someone might believe what a leader or a journalist might say. Everyone should just back off since several national personalities and elected officials' reputations have been just as hurt as those people gunned down in Tuscon by the madman who acted entirely on his own in a vaccuum uninfluenced by the barrage of messages filling the airwaves for the past several years.

Replying to:
Posted by: Angryman
"Get over yourself Sarah, YOU ARE NOT THE VICTIM!! "

Of course Sarah Palin is not the victim of Laughner; she is clearly the victim of you rabid Leftists attempting to, mindlessly and without a shred of evidence, place the LIBEL of this spilled BLOOD on her.

You forget one thing the rest of America sees clearly: LAUGHNER IS ONE OF YOURS!

He shot the congressman because she was too conservative for him.

Braindead Leftists.

Posted by: ScottinVA | January 12, 2011 10:39 AM"

So much hate and ignorance, so little time...

For the record, Scott: Loughtner shot a congressWOMAN, not a congressman. Your inability to get that basic fact straight goes far to explain how you came up with the utterly bizarre notion that the left is to blame for this tragedy.

PLEASE start taking your meds again--or at least stay off the computer if you can't contribute a useful thought to the discussion.

Blood libel describes a horrible lie: the belief that Jews kill Christian children in order to make ritual use of their blood. The libel is nearly a thousand years old, and has been used by anti-Semites through the centuries to justify pogroms, massacres and the destruction of Jews.

For Ms Palin to use that phrase in a complaint about the media, in the aftermath of a mass murder where the primary target was a Jewish woman, is, to put it mildly, strange, and clearly the product of a self-pitying, self-obsessed drama queen.

Don't let it concern you that the Obama administration admitted there were going to be panels deciding which treatments would be cost effective and which would be denied.

Don't let it concern you that Bill Ayers and Barry Sotero are good friends, or that Jeremiah Wright (with his socialistic Liberation Theology)was his spiritual mentor for twenty years.

Oh, and don't let the eight years of shrill calls for President George Bush's assasination trouble your sleep in the slightest.

Just take another sip of that Kool-aid from Ariana and turn on MSNBC.

Posted by: ScottinVA | January 12, 2011 10:30 AM
========================================
Scott, I think you need to be Mentally Evaluated!! This is exactly the kind of thing we are talking about!! The fact that you beleive all of the lies you just spouted is further proof that the lies told by the right are taking effect!!

Buddydog - "And now she's going to (rightfully) have the Jews mad at her for misappropriating the historic slur against Jewish people."

Good luck with that! Blood libels are not trademarked or copywrited by Jews since ONLY Jews have ever been victims of blood libels. The practice goes well past that small group. Blacks with a knowledge of the lynchings might say they too know the power of blood libel, as do the people cognizant of the Irish Troubles, the Martyr complex of Muslims, wars of Reformation, the Japanese unification wars, the use against Spain in the "Black Legend". Etc., etc.

The shooter, Jared Loughner, was a half-Jewish, deranged Nihilist. A left-libertarian doper, as far as we can penetrate his lunacy to see what drove him...And as far away from Palin, talk radio, Christianity..Tea Party.. as imaginable.
The guy voted forObama in 2008. Is Obama, like Palin, going to come under attack by the Left for "helping cause this" and "need to aplogize for his rhetorical excesses"?????

NO, little Lefties??? Yeah, I thought not!

What you basically have now is the Left, caught in what Palin, Will, Krauthammer accurately call blood libeling..in a disgusting exploitative "partisan intiative" that began in hours of the shootings - half retreating and half doubling down on their false narrative.

Like Mayor Bloomberg, saying that the Times Square Bomber was "likely a Tea Party member upset with Obamacare". When it turned out to be yet another Muslim terrorist, 'Ol Mike, progressive Jeiwsh guy that he is, insisted we still needed to use the Muslim radical's attack as an opportunity to "have a teachable moment about the hating haters of the Tea Party.."

Sarah Palin is prophetic. First, before the BP oil spill, she chants: "Drill, Baby, Drill!!". Before the Tucson massacre she writes: "Don't Retreat, Reload!!". I wonder what she has in store for us next?

Palin's largely responsible for putting guns and threats of violence into the national political dialog. I'm sort of surprised she didn't have a Kalashnikov hanging behind her like bin Laden as she issued her lame statement (blaming everyone else, of course).
At least she didn't wink at me.

Violence against government is the hallmark of the right wing political machine. "Gather your armies", "second amendment solutions", the list goes on and on. To say the left does the same thing is just plain lying. The biggest joke is how Rush and Beck are calling this deranged shooter a liberal. Liberals don't pack guns and shoot democrats, believe in returning to the gold standard or follow right wing militia nuts. Even Joe Scarborough has called for the right wing media to tone it down. When you preach hate 24/7 it affects nuts like this guy.

Look how much the Left fears Sarah Palin.
Just the mention of her name brings out the foaming-at-the-mouth epithets and shrieking.

This is an attempted pre-emptive strike at the formost oponent of the Left's agenda. It doesn't matter to them whether it works or not; only that the stupid people get a bad taste in their mouths when they think of her, even though the bad taste is from the Kool-aid spewed from the mouths of these Leftist bigots.

Keep dreaming about the demise of Sarah's political potency; thinking people see through your veneer.

Ya know Swag-O, if you had any chops, you would actually come out and speak, hold a news conference like normal humans do and try to communicate in a two-way conversation with the public. This way, you look like it's just "Come on in kids, mommy is gonna read another letter from uncle Glenn"... It's getting REAL old and most folks that I know are SICK OF YOU by now... So get your lazy ass outta your hiding hole, speak to the public in a Q&A format and deal with it..

Otherwise, don't bother coming out at all... It was appropriate for a commentator to say yesterday that if you DON'T come out and do this, you would forever have erased yourself from the political scene in America as a candidate. With this screed, you're fading fast....

Sarah Palin and the rest of her merry band of wacky, anti-American, hate-filled racists were shocked! Shocked and appalled! I tell you, that their words and imagery of violence could ever lead to, well, violence. What a load of crap. Let's all pull the plug on Sarah's career and call it a day.

With a single video commentary, Sarah Palin has forever disqualified herself from any public office, let alone the Presidency. Faced with the results of her participation in a right-wing orgy of violent rhetoric and imagery, Palin does the opposite of what a responsible person would do; instead of simply accepting responsibility for her hideous gunsight crosshairs map, her constant "lock and reload" language, her participation in the right wing's outpouring of violent language towards President Obama and the Democrats, she turns it all into a narcissistic victim-drama once again, starring of course, herself--this on the day that the nation will gather to remember the real victims of this tragedy. OF COURSE Palin (along with Sharron Angle, Michele Bachmann, Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity, Ann Coulter, Bill O'Reilly, Rush Limbaugh and many others) is clearly guilty of creating an environment in which a deranged young person would feel warmly welcomed to turn rhetorical violence against elected officials into real violence. I mean, what's the question??? But her complete inability to take responsibility shows she lacks the qualifications for any position--formal or informal--in public society. And when I read the comments from her deranged supporters, I weep for this country. All they can do is to robotically spew hatred as Sarah Palin does. This is why we're in this situation, people!!! Of course, Jared Loughner was troubled and deranged--but when "leaders" like Palin and all the others constantly invoke potential violence against our elected officials, how can anyone be surprised that a mentally disturbed young man in one of the very worst states in terms of gun control, and in a state in which the governor herself constantly sows hatred, would take action??? GET A CLUE, IDIOTIC RIGHT-WINGERS!!! By the way, of course, Palin had to go use a term that is incredibly insensitive ("blood libel"), and use it very incorrectly at that. The media and everyone need to shun Sarah Palin and force her back into deep obscurity where she belongs--for the sake of our country's future!!!

On her facebook page, the notoriously thin-skinned Sarah Palin has her lackeys hard at work scrubbing her website for anything remotely negative about her.

The staffer who does the editing leaves this horrifying and disgusting comment up:

"It's ok. Christina Taylor Green (the nine year-old girl who was killed) was probably going to end up a left wing bleeding heart liberal anyway. Hey, as 'they' say, what would you do if you had the chance to kill Hitler as a kid? Exactly"

Is it any wonder it took Palin six years to graduate college?
Palin has Giffords on a hit list. Giffords is the center of an assassination plot. Palin does not understand why the media is jumping on her about having a hit list with Giffords name on it. Palin states she is the focus of a blood libel. Giffords is Jewish. Can anyone with half a brain see why Palin has no brain?

Replying to:
"Good thing we have sensible and brave people like Sarah Palin around. If we get more of these liberals with their limited intellectual capacity, this country would fall apart quickly.

Who are these intellectually challenged liberals? Well, to get a good sample just read the comments in Wash Post articles.
Posted by: rimantas1 | January 12, 2011 10:28 AM

Rimantas, I'd be willing to bet that the liberals you denounce as having a "limited intellectual capacity" are at least intelligent enough to know what "blood libel" means, and to understand just how profoundly offensive, and unfounded, an accusation Ms. Palin is making.

Yet more proof that she will say just about ANYTHING to avoid taking an iota of responsibility for her overheated rhetoric. It would be sad if it weren't so frightening.

You made your bed, Sarah, now lie in it. Posing for pictures in a bikini holding a semiautomatic weapon while some hick downs a Schlitz and a cig. Please Sarah, run for president so we can watch you crash and burn - and then blame someone else for your stupidity.

Half-term Sarah is jealous that Congresswoman Giffords is getting more publicity than she is. Everyone knows that Sarah is the real victim here, and people need to start realizing that and pay more attention to her.

You can take the girl out of the trailer park, but you'll never get the trailer park out of the girl.

There is zero evidence to suggest the shooter was motivated, incited or responding to anything other then his own twisted imagination. He became fixated on Giffords after a comment she made in a town hall meeting back in 2007, long before Sarah Palin ever stepped into the limelight. I'm not a Palin fan myself but to say that the right or Sarah Palin is to blame for inciting violence with their rhetoric is absurd, factually baseless and hypocritical at best. Obama himself has used similar rhetoric as have Rahm Emanuel, Joe Manchin and many others on the left. Perhaps those of you so fixated on spewing bile and erroneously blaming anyone other then the shooter should seriously consider a check up from the neck up. Hopefully, by doing so we may just prevent another senseless and cowardly murder.

"It is in the hour when our values are challenged that we must remain resolved to protect those values," Palin said.
______________________________________________

What are you saying Palin? That you have the right to put hit lists on the internet so some deranged unstable person will see them and go and do your dirty work. No matter how many times you deny it this is conspiracy to commit murder and you should be in jail.

Posted by: Angryman
"Get over yourself Sarah, YOU ARE NOT THE VICTIM!! "

Of course Sarah Palin is not the victim of Laughner; she is clearly the victim of you rabid Leftists attempting to, mindlessly and without a shred of evidence, place the LIBEL of this spilled BLOOD on her.

You forget one thing the rest of America sees clearly: LAUGHNER IS ONE OF YOURS!

In less than 10 days it will be back to business as usual for palin. She'll be spewing her patented brand of imaginary information and outright lies all over Fox and any other media outlet that will give her an opportunity. Make no mistake though, the type of hate that this 'woman' spreads may or may not have been responsible for what happened in Arizona over the week-end but if she keeps at it, and I have no doubt that she will, it will be responsible of some horrific tragedy in the future.

Is it just me or has she started to age quite a bit. Notice the wrinkles in her face under the cake layer of makeup. I mean she's not so hideous that I wouldn't still hit it but she is starting to get a bit questionable in the bangable department. Much like her beauty, she will fade...

Time is almost up Mrs. P, I hope you raked in as much money as you could while it lasted. I mean who would of thought a person with her qualifications could have ever achieved the notoriety she currently enjoys. Ah the American way in all its glory! Proof that this county still is a beacon for *ANYONE* to succeed especially if you have two brestasis, a vajayjay and are pretty!

There is medication for the overblown conspiracy you folks think is going on with fox news and Sarah. I do believe there is medication that will assist in balancing out that thinking ...as well as the thinking of the shooter.

Talk about blaming others! I have two questions. What on earth does "blood libel" mean? Is this another catchy phrase Palin has come up with? And isn`t she herself a ¨pundit¨to some extent?

I don´t blame her for this terrible event but I do think many like her on both the right and left side of the political spectrum are too busy assigning blame without looking at the complexity of all the underlying reasons. One especially important issue question is not why this guy could buy a gun but why he was out on the streets. Mentally ill, criminally insane, however he´s labeled, there are too many like him who present a real threat to citizens. His parents evidently knew something was wrong, his classmates and coworkers certainly did.

"It is in the hour when our values are challenged that we must remain resolved to protect those values," Palin said. "Recall how the events of 9-11 challenged our values and we had to fight the tendency to trade our freedoms for perceived security. And so it is today."

Tell me this was a joke by the Mama Grizzley, because if it is not, she clearly has zero grasp on reality. The country did exactly that, traded liberty for security following the tragedy of 9/11. They started tapping phones without warrant, opening anything and everything they felt proper at the airport, attacking innocent countries and lets not even talk about the FU given to the Geneva Convention that is Guantanamo Bay. Maybe she is even dumber than I thought. My fellow citizens, DO NOT elect this crazy lady.

So, on the day of the memorial service for the victims of this atrocity, the Washington Post has decided to give all of their attention to the rantings of this over-hyped nobody.
Way to stay classy, WaPo!!

She gets more disgusting all the time. A political striptease artist/demagogue who will say anything, do anything to get what she wants. And what her advisers want. I wonder who is hanging around her now, dreaming of a West Wing office.

I don't understand how putting up crosshairs on political figures and extolling people "not to retreat but RELOAD" as Palin did or pushing for "second amendment solutions" as Sharon Angle did or talking about how participating in the Census could be used by the Government to put people in "reeducation camps" as Michelle Bachman did or telling people that "the Democrats want nothing less than to run a police state" as Glenn Beck did or warning people to "be very afraid of what the Democrats are doing to this country" as Sean Hannity did might be seen as influencing unstable people to unnnaturally fear elected officials.

It seems unfair to tell politicians and members of the media that words have consequences - only people who spend their lives dealing with words and messaging and trying to influence other people would have any idea that someone might believe what a leader or a journalist might say. Everyone should just back off since several national personalities and elected officials' reputations have been just as hurt as those people gunned down in Tuscon by the madman who acted entirely on his own in a vaccuum uninfluenced by the barrage of messages filling the airwaves for the past several years.

Get over yourself Sarah, YOU ARE NOT THE VICTIM!! There were 20 people shot, 6 died, including a 9 y.o girl! The congresswoman is fighting for her life and for recovery and you have the audacity to issue a statement proclaiming YOU to be the victim! YOU ARE A COMPLETE AND UTTER MORON!! You may not be directly responsible, but don't act as if you don't know why people are pointing the finger at you! You had this woman's district in cross hairs for GOD sake and she ended up being shot!! Are you and those of your ilk REALLY that stupid as to think that NOBODY should make this kind of connection? Seriously? Why don't you just stay in Alaska as Barbara Bush suggested!!

Krauthammer is right on mark.
The various Leftists that used the blood libel smear within minutes of the shooting hoping to exploit it for political gain will pay.
They HOPED the shooter was a right winger.
They are looking as bad as another person - NYC mayor Michael Bloomberg did, when he blamed the Tea Party and opposition to Obamacare for the Times Square bombing.

That so many of these media purveyors of the blood libel following the Tucson incident are Progressive Jews whose ancestors in Europe were on the receiving end of blood libels - is particularly vicious and repellant.

I'd like one of the bigmouths (or is that keyboards) to prove that the shooter even saw the graphic or heard Sarah say anything about having anyone in her sights. You can't prove it ..because it is nonsense. We don't even know that he knows who sarah is quite frankly. BTW he didn't vote in the last election so I doubt he listened to the TV..he listened more to the voices in his head than he listened to TV or read anything.

This shooter thought that government is controling what we say or our vocabulary or something. He thought that he could get out of paying taxes by ...what was it now....throwing fairy dust around?? (yes i was being snarky).

He was and is delusional..I doubt he knew who sarah was and I doubt he cared. In fact I don't think this guy knew or understood how our government even works [begin sarcasm] ..let alone how the government does voice and language manipulation on people. The government keeps that all hush hush you know. If word got out..that we have that kind of resources then ...there goes that deficit...and the martians could come get us ..let alone the martians being freed that we have in secure lockup...and my god then people would be able to complain about illegal aliens if they got out...and lets not even get into how the government does that mind control thing...or where Jimmy hoffa got put....or the grassy knoll...and then there's the zombie hive...lets just not go there![end sarcasm]

It's not illegal to believe in conspiracy theories or anything ..What makes someone nuts is the patholigical part...and it is a whole different set of demons that has taken hold of this young man. I think it is pathetic that someone is taking advantage of an obviously mentally ill person and using that opportunity to cause trouble. It is PATHETIC.

What should be talked about is how we are not identifying the seriously deranged.

I cannot express with socially acceptable words my opininion about Sarah Palin and her beliefs, and all the BLOOD TEA party members....
They are equally responsible for all the blood that was shed in Tuscon!!

Is it any wonder it took Palin six years to graduate college?
Palin has Giffords on a hit list. Giffords is the center of an assassination plot. Palin does not understand why the media is jumping on her about having a hit list with Giffords name on it. Palin states she is the focus of a blood libel. Giffords is Jewish. Can anyone with half a brain see why Palin has no brain?

She's George W. Bush in a skirt -- neither of them can accept responsibility for or even acknowledge that they've said or done anything wrong or had any effect on anyone's life or actions. What a pathetic duo.

It certainly didn't take long for the right wing PR machine come up with their talking points. Palin and Krauthammer are using the word "libel." The word is being used on FOX News over and over again. They've been instructed on what to say. The discussion is purely about being "persecuted" and the "finger-pointing." I would imagine that the NRA is more concerned with the potential groundswell of support for stricter gun laws than any of this. I suspect they don't want any discussion on the subject and this sort of "blame" discussion is just fine with them as a diversion. Effectively, that's the major issue here for the big donor and lobby group, not the finger-pointing. This is about changing the subject and wagging the dog.

Did the media blame MSNBC for the deaths caused by the DC sniper? He was a a left-winger.
Posted by: Frishoo
==========

You tell me - was MSNBC featuring guests and hosts who day in, day out accused individuals or groups of people of trying to destroy a way of life? The way that Palin and the Tea Party have accused Democrats - by individual name and as a group - of threatening America to the point that armed resistance is needed?

IF you or i said the things Palen says(WE HAVE CAME UNARMED THIS TIME) (DO NOT RETREAT, RELOAD)Aad other remark that point to gun fire, the FBI would have us PDQ, This lady is a nut case, and need mental help.

Sarah, It is YOU that is reprehensible. YOU that should NEVER have been in the public eye because you lack the morals and ethics needed to be a positive factor in the world. God sent this to you to make everyone put you in your place - a S#$% hole. Too bad the target you put on the innocent was not put on youor your child - would you find that reprehensible? Do onto others you sick, crazy, ignorant scum.

"A Palin aide defended the former governor in an appearance on Alaska radio Sunday, saying that there was "nothing irresponsible" about the images of crosshairs used in a map of the 20 congressional districts targeted by Palin's PAC."

Which is it, Crosshairs or Surveyor's sights? I don't know. It depends on the day of the week and what context it's in. There is no truth, there is only individual freedom and reality. And language means nothing anyways. So we can call for Second Amendment solutions to Sarah Palin and put her in our Crosshairs/Surveyor's sights (whatever) and there is no problem? We can show up at book signings loaded for bear, and that will show we are just God-fearing, patriotic Americans (especially if we wear big crosses and red, white and blue jewelry)? Lock and Load! And, we can stomp on those that dissent? None of this should prove bothersome to those who advocate it for the Queen of Violent Metaphors. Don't Retreat! Reload!

So,have we got the parameters of civilized behavior down yet? Just trying to get the rule book covered. You know how it is with those reality-based folks - it takes a bit longer to get through the elitist, educated gray matter. Not to worry. I think the message is clear: whatever is said on one side of the aisle (in the church called Life) is okay, always defensible, is never wrong, and no matter how violent or hateful is justified because, well, because of who said it. So, it's just a matter of what side of the aisle you might be on. Now, there's something to base American democracy on, if you happen to be on that side of the aisle.

Is it any wonder it took Palin six years to graduate college?
Palin has Giffords on a hit list. Giffords is the center of an assassination plot. Palin does not understand why the media is jumping on her about having a hit list with Giffords name on it. Palin states she is the focus of a blood libel. Giffords is Jewish. Can anyone with half a brain see why Palin has no brain?

Palin feels she right once again: enough about honoring the victims and their families on this day of remembrance in Tucson but let's get to the real blood in the matter - the "blood libel" against the poor, peaceable, victim Sarah Palin...the real victim in this tragedy.

Never mind she fully embodies the "shrill cry of imagined insults" she talked about today when her own words and images have to be taken down from her website immediately after the killings because they are examples of the violent images she traffics in. She is angered and victimized when her words are repeated as emblems of a violent national discourse. But that is not all, since she lied repeatedly to the nation on "death panels" and the President "palling around with terrorists" yet feels we should honor her for her many virtues. Are these the examples of the "spirited debate" she alleges the world is amazed to see in America? Then she must be proud to be the Republican standard bearer for taking the country back one way or the other. Intimidation has no purpose in our system and she doesn't even know it.

She has been an arctic grifter from the first we saw of her and today she seriously misfired in her play for national sympathy when there are real victims still hurting badly in Tucson.

Most rational people are not saying they are responsible for to this young man singling out Gifford, but rather they are high profile examples of the kinds of highly visible/heard influencers on society that make violent rhetoric acceptable. Couple this with inessantly challenging people to "walk the walk, not just talk the talk"... at what point does violent 'talk' turn into violent 'walk'.

In short, the Palins and Angles of the world (that is NOT meant to say "the right") are saying to the media "Do as I say - Not as I do" when it comes to finger pointing and calling actions/words into question. It's fine for them to do so, but not the media. And, to the greater public "Do as I do - Not as I say"... wait, what? Should people just talk the talk... or walk the walk... or only walk the walk about some of the talk because most of the talk is as clear as mud.

The "I do no wrong" + "don't retreat... RELOAD" attitude blinds them to the fact that their own brand of "leadership" is laced with "reprehensible", "irresponsible" communications that are "both dangerous and ignorant".

If they want to be leaders, perhaps they should start in leading by example and learn to communicate in a way that keeps "walking their talk" on an honorable path.

It has been a couple of years now since the 2008 elections and the emergence of the Tea Party -- enough time for some of those who have become prominent political candidates or public figures to use their First Amendment rights to build a public record of their views, expressed in their own words.

Their public records, and their words, speak for themselves. Sarah Palin names her perceived political adversaries, including Representative Giffords, as "targets," uses rifle crosshairs to mark the locations of their legislative districts on a map, and urges her supporters to "reload." Michele Bachmann encourages her supporters to be "armed and dangerous," and tells them that the President of their country is "anti-American." Sharron Angle suggests that if her supporters are not successful at the ballot box, they should consider resorting to "Second Amendment alternatives."

More broadly, officeholders and candidates such as John Kyl, Jim DeMint, Jeb Hensarling, Mike Pence and Rand Paul have built their public identities and their political careers not on devising workable solutions to our country's many challenges, but on vilifying anyone they perceive as disagreeing with them.

As Americans and as voters, we are entitled to evaluate for ourselves what conclusions to draw about their moral and intellectual fitness to hold public office or exert political leadership, based on the public records they have built in their own words.

I believe political/media types should not create an atmosphere of violent innuendo, like the example of ominous graphics featured on Sarah Palin's now famous website, which has become an example, not because of an attack fueled by a dislike of her as a person, many like myself are indifferent to her.

Sarah Palin's website is used as an example because it is the best example of irresponsible "rhetoric". The "hit list" and cross hairs (whether it was a rifle or surveyors scope) featured on her website were removed from the site because of a possible liability issue, that her staff correctly perceived, not because of what she interprets as a personal attack, otherwise it would still be a large feature on her website.

Now after the gun has cooled and the smoke has cleared, Sarah has this articulate and well written defense. I wish that she had this type of forethought as she does hindsight, before submitting foreboding graphics on her website which in the context they were used, had the potential of planting a seed to commit violence in unstable persons, and COULD have played a role in the motive of the Arizona shootings, just as it could play a future role in other deadly attacks against those who were targeted by Sara Palin on her website.

I personally do not consider this benign political behavior, it is derelict in accountability and lacks a basic proper psychologic responsibility from someone who desires to be a public servant.

Thank you, Sarah Palin, for showing your true colors. You could have embraced this opportunity for open discussion and healing. Instead, you chose to continue inflammatory, irresponsible, and immature finger pointing and cultural polarization. I didn't think you'd be adult enough to be part of the solution, but I hoped maybe I'd be wrong.

By the way, free speech only guarantees your right to self-expression. Having the right, however, doesn't make it RIGHT! That's something most of us figured out in kindergarten.

Huh?
Does she even look up what she saying. And this women has children? You got to be kidding me that she would use such words, well maybe not!

Blood libel (also blood accusation[1][2]) refers to a false accusation or claim[3][4][5] that religious minorities, almost always Jews, murder children to use their blood in certain aspects of their religious rituals and holidays.[1][2][6] Historically, these claims have–alongside those of well poisoning and host desecration–been a major theme in European persecution of Jews.[4]

The libels typically allege that Jews require human blood for the baking of matzos for Passover. The accusations often assert that the blood of Christian children is especially coveted, and historically blood libel claims have often been made to account for otherwise unexplained deaths of children. In some cases, the alleged victim of human sacrifice has become venerated as a martyr, a holy figure around whom a martyr cult might arise. A few of these have been even canonized as saints.

In Jewish lore, blood libels were the impetus for the creation in the 16th century of the Golem of Prague by Rabbi Judah Loew ben Bezalel. Many popes have either directly or indirectly condemned the blood accusation, and no pope has ever sanctioned it.[7] These libels have persisted among some segments of Christians to the present time, and recently Muslims as well.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_libel

Huh?
Does she even look up what she saying. And this women has children? You got to be kidding me that she would use such words, well maybe not!

Blood libel (also blood accusation[1][2]) refers to a false accusation or claim[3][4][5] that religious minorities, almost always Jews, murder children to use their blood in certain aspects of their religious rituals and holidays.[1][2][6] Historically, these claims have–alongside those of well poisoning and host desecration–been a major theme in European persecution of Jews.[4]

The libels typically allege that Jews require human blood for the baking of matzos for Passover. The accusations often assert that the blood of Christian children is especially coveted, and historically blood libel claims have often been made to account for otherwise unexplained deaths of children. In some cases, the alleged victim of human sacrifice has become venerated as a martyr, a holy figure around whom a martyr cult might arise. A few of these have been even canonized as saints.

In Jewish lore, blood libels were the impetus for the creation in the 16th century of the Golem of Prague by Rabbi Judah Loew ben Bezalel. Many popes have either directly or indirectly condemned the blood accusation, and no pope has ever sanctioned it.[7] These libels have persisted among some segments of Christians to the present time, and recently Muslims as well.

The left is in full panic mode because the country does not support Obama's Marxist agenda.

They are politicizing this tragedy.

It's so over the top now, that it isn't hard for any clear thinking person to see their agenda. Pundits and politicians on their side (Obama included) have regularly used inflammatory rhetoric. The hypocrisy is stunning to watch as they scramble to place blame in spite of a lack of any evidence and the fact that the Democratic Party has used similar maps with targets. What a joke.

Posted by: withersb
"Palin's statement was on mainstream news this morning and she has certainly made her situation worse by it. It is hard to imagine a more insensitive, tone-deaf response. American people have had enough and those who are not listening will regret it."

It is very easy to imagine a more insensitive, tone-deaf response: The Leftists who started this blame game without a shred of evidence about this lunatic's motives.

I wish she had not responded, because she has only begun arguing with fools.

"A Palin aide defended the former governor in an appearance on Alaska radio Sunday, saying that there was "nothing irresponsible" about the images of crosshairs used in a map of the 20 congressional districts targeted by Palin's PAC."

Which is it, Crosshairs or Surveyor's sights? I don't know. It depends on the day of the week and what context it's in. There is no truth, there is only individual freedom and reality. And language means nothing anyways. So we can call for Second Amendment solutions to Sarah Palin and put her in our Crosshairs/Surveyor's sights (whatever) and there is no problem? We can show up at book signings loaded for bear, and that will show we are just God-fearing, patriotic Americans (especially if we wear big crosses and red, white and blue jewelry)? Lock and Load! And, we can stomp on those that dissent? None of this should prove bothersome to those who advocate it for the Queen of Violent Metaphors. Don't Retreat! Reload!

So,have we got the parameters of civilized behavior down yet? Just trying to get the rule book covered. You know how it is with those reality-based folks - it takes a bit longer to get through the elitist, educated gray matter. Not to worry. I think the message is clear: whatever is said on one side of the aisle (in the church called Life) is okay, always defensible, is never wrong, and no matter how violent or hateful is justified because, well, because of who said it. So, it's just a matter of what side of the aisle you might be on. Now, there's something to base American democracy on, if you happen to be on that side of the aisle.

Mrs. P is startin' to look at bit wrinkled and long in the tooth in this video. My guess is that we are getting to about minute 11 in her 15 minutes of fame. Get ready for obscurity ya old bag because its barrelling down on you like a freight train.

I'm no Sarah Palin supporter, but I agree that she should not be held responsible for the actions of the shooter. But at the same time, when she's up on her political soapbox she does use a LOT of gun/battle/war-related analogies. I hope she'll consider dialing this back in the future. And not because of some new legislation, but because it's the responsible thing to do.

As the Left decapitates a piñata of Sheriff Joe Arpaio during the immigration debate...next to one of Hitler for good measure...they scream and stomp their feet that the right's rhetoric is a overheated...and that they use sloppy martial metaphors...

Is it any wonder it took Palin six years to graduate college?
Palin has Giffords on a hit list. Giffords is the center of an assassination plot. Palin does not understand why the media is jumping on her about having a hit list with Giffords name on it. Palin states she is the focus of a blood libel. Giffords is Jewish. Can anyone with half a brain see why Palin has no brain?

"Blood libel?" Has someone accused Sarah Palin of killing Christian children and baking them into matzohs for Passover? I hadn't heard that.

But I do not expect those responsible for fomenting the political climate that holds it to be patriotic to take up arms against Democrats to admit to their role in it. That does not in any way diminish their role in it, nor does their attempt to shed crocodile tears over the consequences of their incitement.

Sarah Palin is not solely responsible, but certainly she legitimately shares a portion of the responsibility for the events that transpired in Tuscon last Saturday.

Posted by: fishman2
"SCOTTINVA, do you understand what satire is? Obviously not. By the way, the urinating and raining thing of yours was really bizarre. Get out math class...and go see the psychiatrist!"

You don't have to prove my point repeatedly; everybody has already seen that you lack logical skills, and must resort to name-calling and crude insults.

Would someone please explain the concept of plain English to Ms. Palin? If you don't know how to use a word properly, don't use it ...

SP: "to the irresponsible statements from people attempting to apportion blame for this terrible event"

Apportionment, legal term meaning to distribute or allocate proper shares.

I suppose you could use the term to mean the distribution or allocation of BLAME, but it's a bit of a stretch. Just say "cast blame" - Geesh, Joe six pack isn't impressed by your fancy schmancy language dear.

God Bless the Tea Party and our Dear Leader Sarah Palin. The Second American Revolution called for by Rush has begun. We've rushed out to buy our Glock 19s with extended clips and we're waiting for instructions from our Leader. By the way, the Jews have been moaning about "blood libel" for centuries. It's about time somebody with a real justified complaint got to use the term!

I am a liberal and very proud of it. People on the right keep blaming my opinions on Keith Olbermann. Interesting because I have never once listened to him for the same reasons I wouldn't waste my time on Limbaugh, Beck, Paln etc. I know numerous conservatives who have the same outlook on these people. Palin's statement was on mainstream news this morning and she has certainly made her situation worse by it. It is hard to imagine a more insensitive, tone-deaf response. American people have had enough and those who are not listening will regret it.

Barring her political views, Sarah Palin contributes heavily and happily to a dangerous political climate where violent rhetoric and ideas desensitize the public to the use of weapons. There is a difference between a gun and a gun as a weapon, and Palin aided in blurring this line. It offends me that she refuses to acknowledge this.

I am a liberal and very proud of it. People on the right keep blaming my opinions on Keith Olbermann. Interesting because I have never once listened to him for the same reasons I wouldn't waste my time on Limbaugh, Beck, Paln etc. I know numerous conservatives who have the same outlook on these people. Palin's statement was on mainstream news this morning and she has certainly made her situation worse by it. It is hard to imagine a more insensitive, tone-deaf response. American people have had enough and those who are not listening will regret it.

SCOTTINVA, do you understand what satire is? Obviously not. By the way, the urinating and raining thing of yours was really bizarre. Get out math class, stop masturbating to that image of Palin, and go see the psychiatrist!

The democrat party is the pro-abortion party. Abortion has killed over 50 million human in the U.S. far more than guns.
---------------
OK so you're an anti-abortion republican? Republicans are supposed to be for smaller government, controlled spending but you want a republican party that dictates that you MUST give birth no matter what...

That's not smaller government. That's intrusive government.

Republicans beleive in an invisible man in the sky and view a fetus as a human.

Democrats beleive in science and see a fetus as a fetus.

Killing a living breathing human does not equate to expelling a clump of cells. Nice try on the comparison though.

while it's probably true the shooter had ideas about killing before there was a tea party, i don't see what difference it makes.
the tea party didn't just arrive out of thin air.
the tea party crowd has always been with us in one form or another.
the problem isn't the tea party brand name, the problem is those people who now call themselves tea partiers and who also go around threatening violence, and provoking violence and inciting violence.

a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.

palins claim she and the tea party are not at fault because the tea party is "new" is as ridiculous as her staffers claim the bullseyes were not bullseyes.

SCOTTINVA, do you understand what satire is? Obviously not. By the way, the urinating and raining thing of yours was really bizarre. Get out math class, stop masturbating to that image of Palin, and go see the psychiatrist!

Regardless of the motives of the assassin, the debate is urgently needed. The political radicalization in the US has reached a point that is unworthy of a democratic state. More than any others, the members of the Tea Party movement made rhetoric of war into normal discourse ..."

"It speaks volumes that Tea Party members and former Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin removed crude imagery from their websites in a hurry on Saturday ..."

When David Letterman made a comment that was open to interpretation as to whether or not it was referring to either of her daughters, Sarah Palin took to the airwaves to decry David for an assault on her youngest daughter and for being insensitive to women and persons with disabilities. If you apply the same measure that she applied to David Letterman comments, to her map of the United States putting politicians in the crosshairs, it is fair game to not only critique her poor taste but to make the same comparisons and connection between her 'free speech' and that of David Letterman's. We should hold the former governor and VP candidate to a higher standard than she held a comedian and talk show host. The congresswoman was not shot because she was a woman, a mother, a wife or just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. She found herself in the path of a bullet because of what she represented and chose to represent in the United States House of Representatives. Sarah Palin may have had different reasons for putting her in the crosshairs but both she and the shooter were aiming at what the congresswoman represents. What the congresswoman represents has been made raw meat in the nation's political discourse. When that raw meat incites a feeding frenzy of aggressive rhetoric the media should not be so quick to let itself of the hook in the name of journalism and plausible deniability. It is not that the media is responsible for what happen. It is rather that part of the reason this happened is because the media and certain politicians are and were irresponsible in advocating and reporting political points of view that were more in their interest than in the interest of the public they profess to serve.

Will this irrelevant bimbo never shut up? Will the media not ever, finally, say "enough" to her illiterate rants?

The premise that societal pressures don't engender actions by members of that society is patently ridiculous. But Ms Palin probably didn't cover that while obtaining her multiple school T&A degree. Every time one of her NRA buds takes a weapon to a public event, they offer a threat to others, a form of intimidation they well understand. If you doubt that, then why don't they allow guns on airplanes?

Time for the Tea Bags to put a consistent "look" to their movement. Brown shirts, boots, would be a good beginning. Perhaps Ms Palin will contribute financially; after all, she's made a lot of money inciting the rabble.

The root cause of this whole thing is that we have a social malaise. Arrogant righteousness exacerbates it. The truth is that all of us are to blame. The problem is that no one is humble enough to accept the fact. And we will burn in hell until the day we collectively crucify an innocent being, and then repent for our heinousness... and change our ways. 2000 years and we haven't learned anything yet. Weird, eh?

The root cause of this whole thing is that we have a social malaise. Arrogant righteousness exacerbates it. The truth is that all of us are to blame. The problem is that no one is humble enough to accept the fact. And we will burn in hell until the day we collectively crucify an innocent being, and then repent for our heinousness... and change our ways. 2000 years and we haven't learned anything yet. Weird, eh?

SCOTTINVA, please leave the community college math class you are in right now and go get the psychiatric health care you needthat is part of the health care bill before the Republicans repeal it!
Oh, and stop masturbating to that image of Sarah Palin on your screen.

Do you mean former Flunky Governor of Alaska? to call Sarah Air Head former governor of Alaska is to twist the truth. She did not even serve a full term and resigned as soon as the going got hot, of her own making.

Hey I like the Tea Party. Just wish their founder and their chief spokeswoman and key members weren't so intellectually dishonest.

While not directly responsible, she was responsible in that she was one of the crowd of commentators and politicians inciting crowds of Americans to an unhealthy frenzy; essentially one of many rabble rousers.

Commentators and politicians on the left AND the right share the guilt in this. She and the others were irresponsible in using their power and positions to incite hatred and division amongst Americans rather than focus on the issues and imbue respect for one another.

However, if you take a critical look at the calls by some for a 'second amendment remedy' - which directly carries a connotation of violence - and similar rhetoric (calls for a revolution) combined with the vitriolic about the government, the judiciary and federal employees, it really does show an intellectual argument for, and tip toeing around, a call for the overthrowing of the U.S. Government as it exists today. If done peacefully by the ballot box, all well and fine.

But political speech calling for 'second amendment remedies' and other inciting speech using the imagery of violence and armed revolution should be called out for what it is, illegal and a call for the violent overthrow of the U.S. Its too bad the Government can't see some of these politicians for libel AND its really too bad that these politicians and pundits cannot be held accountable for their actions, i.e. calls for confrontation and exclusion.

As evidenced by the public discourse among many, but not all, following this tragedy the prospects for the U.S. and civility are not good. These people have no shame.

Posted by: fishman2
"ScottinVA, is your last name Loughner and are you in a math class at a community college right now? After reading your post, I suggest you take advantage of the psychiatric health care available through the health care bill."

Typical Leftist without an argument; he uses another logical fallacy to attempt a rebuttal called the ad hominem attack.

The democrat party is the pro-abortion party. Abortion has killed over 50 million human in the U.S. far more than guns. When the democrats point their finger they should point it at themselves they are the big killers.

Palin uses the term' Blood Libel' but probably doesn't know the genesis of the term and how to use it in the proper context. She's Jewish now? She's a spoil brat, a little girl who can't take responsibility for their actions. She is a pathetic @$$...i wish she would just go away for good.

After reading many of the postings from right wingers who obviously have some perveted fascination with Palin, I suggest each and everyone one of you take advantage of the psychiatric health care provision that is part of the health care bill. Unless you are too busy rambling incoherently in a math class at a community college.

After reading many of the postings from right wingers who obvioulsy have some perveted fascination with Palin, I suggest each and everyone one of you take advantage of the psychiatric health care provision that is part of the health care bill. Unless you are too busy rambling incoherently in a math class at a community college.

Let us tone down the rhetoric. Words are mightier than the sword so goes the saying. No doubt that the gunman is a closeted schizophrenic but words I know can encourage the crazy to do owful things and it is up to the sane majority of this country to stand up to the rhetoric of hate and make stop.

This pop culture queen not only acted outed of ignorance in her political life, but like all those who rise to the top, only because of America's taste of the bizarre, she Sarah Palin refuses to take any responsibility for her immature impulses.

Why? Because legions of ignorant Americans addicted to rude vulgar behavior like her. They think she is smart.

Sad but this is common in media generated modern America. At least Britney Spears and the Lindsey Lohan see what needs to change in themselves.

I wonder who actually wrote Ms. Palin's statement. It is too articulate to have come from Ms. Palin herself. The fact that she is more concerned about her image than anything else says it all. May this terrible set of events please spell the end of this woman's public career. She has demonstrated time and again that narcissism is what drives her.

Sadly Sarah Palin does not get it. Her only motivation in making a statement is to get her name and face out in public again. Morality is defined as having a proper manner and character and it is quite apparent now that Sarah Palin's over the top rhetoric is derived from her complete and utter lack of morals, like anyone, left, right or center who utters or defends hate speech. As Christians, which Ms. Palin constantly reminds us she is, we need to recall Jesus' response when he was asked about the greatest commandment--His response was "treat others as you would have them treat you, that sums up the law and the prophets." Would Sarah Palin or any of her defenders want to be marked with crosshairs or have "second amendment remedies" brought against them, or have their citizenship questioned or be hounded about flat out lies presented as truth? I would assume the answer is no. yet, they continue and that is why they have no morals.

ScottinVA, is your last name Loughner and are you in a math class at a community college right now? After reading your post, I suggest you take advantage of the psychiatric health care available through the health care bill.

Loughner was not right-wing. Nihilism is as far from the Christian right as one can be. People attempting to make a tenuous connection between the political right and Loghner are falling for political opportunism by some (not all) on the left.

Her statement demonstrates precisely why Sarah Palin is not fit to be President. She trivializes a national tragedy by making it all about her.

The appropriate thing would have been to express sympathy for the families and the City of Tuscon, and pledge to work in the future to help prevent such things from happening again, perhaps by working on providing better avenues for families of limited means to gain access to mental health care for young adults. And then Just. Shut. Up.

Sarah Palin shoots herself in the foot again.
Giffords was on Palin's hit list, oops, I meant surveyor's map list.
An assassination attempt is made n Gifford's life.
It does not take a genius to figure that out. Then again, Palin is no genius.
How many years did it take her to graduate college? 6? 10? 14?

Many of us have never heard of"Blood Libel" until today. The definition of term is burning up the internet this morning. Now that we know it's meaning we understand more than ever how idiotic Sarah Palin is.

Posted by: fishman2
"Sarah Palin has a map with crosshairs of Democrats on it and one of the members of Congress on the hit list is shot. Yet, she thinks absolutely nothing of it, considering the fact that she was repeatedly WARNED this could lead to violence. Are people really that dense not to make the connection?"

I say, "If everybody doesn't stop urinating, then it will lead to rain!"

Then it rains, and I accuse all those who did not "heed my warning".

This is the same illogical non sequiter the Leftists are using in their deperate attempt to pin something as unrelated as a madman's shooting of a congressman with allegorical images in political descourse.

The majority of Americans,Independents and Moderates in this country that have been watching the outrageous hate of the Tea Party movement and Sarah Palin quite a while by the Liberal Party.The majority of Americans are bewildered by their actions and those actions cost them dearly the last election.Most like myself an Independent that have been seeing the outrageous statements in the Washington Post, placing the blame on the Tea Party and Sarah Palin and if they continue that path,they'll go down in the Dustbin of History.

the teahadis just voted in the south to start resegregating schools. And the teahadis are blocking funding to implemet the new financial reforms that would prevent another catastrophy like the one that the bush/republicon alliance precipitated in 2007.

The shooter is obviously mentally ill and all reasonable people would agree that his actions were unprovoked and his own.

That doesn’t mean that he wasn’t affected by the incendiary rhetoric that is used to rile up stupid and bigoted people for Palin’s ongoing popularity contest. Not all Palin supporters are disaffected white gun nuts who see government as the enemy. But I bet most if not all disaffected white gun nuts who see government as the enemy are Palin supporters.

There should be an IQ test for government service including elected officials. That way she never would have been governor and we would have never heard of her. The world would be a better place.

The Tucson massacre is the direct result of all the hundreds of violent protests by the Left threatening DEATH to Politicians. They have going on now for many years totally unchallenged by their Democrat leaders (Obama, Reid, Pelosi) and the leftwing media.

Sarah Palin is a typical mouthy redneck. She likes to shoot off her mouth but when the heat is placed on her, she quickly jumps into defense mode and claims innocence. And the GOP thought they had a problem on their hands with Steele …

Somehow comments like: "reload", "use 2nd ammendment remedies" and "if ballots don't work, bullets will" and usng gun sites to "target" congressonal distrcts are protected by the first ammendment, but if one uses their voice and is critical of those words, they are labled as "blood libel".

The selective application of the right to free speach... well, thats the literal defnition of hypocrisy.

First it was "they are taking our country", then it was "reverse racism", now it is "liberals need to tone down the hate speach".

Sarah Palin represents a group of pathetic whinning self indulgent hypocrites who complain that they are the victim.

I would like to hear a politician insist on mental health care for all.
I would like to hear some honesty about gun laws.
I am not impressed with people who want to cut taxes for necessary services and then claim that everything depends on personal responsibility.

So is Palin saying that it's okay to put gun sites on your political opponents? It's okay to encourage "Second Amendment remedies" and to encourage your supporters to be "armed and dangerous"?

It would have impressed me if she had said, regardless of who is to blame, "Let's tone down the rhetoric, let's not use gun imagery against political opponents anymore, let's really do engage in civil discourse." But no, she says everyone else does it.

Palin is the mama grizzly of over-the-top rhetoric. That's her schtick. It's disingenuous of her now to say, everyone else does it. Man up, Palin. You are one of the main drivers of political vitriol.

Republican Policy:
Step 1) Rile up the psychos with inflammatory language about tyranny, betrayal and a desire to "take back" their country.
Step 2) Fight any attempt at a national healthcare system so the loonies can go undiagnosed and do their leaders bidding.
Step 3) Make guns so easy to get that even the mentally unstable can buy one at the corner store.
Step 4) Deny all culpability when the end game becomes a reality.

The shooter is obviously mentally ill and all reasonable people would agree that his actions were unprovoked and his own.

That doesn’t mean that he wasn’t affected by the incendiary rhetoric that is used to rile up stupid and bigoted people for Palin’s ongoing popularity contest. Not all Palin supporters are disaffected white gun nuts who see government as the enemy. But I bet most if not all disaffected white gun nuts who see government as the enemy are Palin supporters.

There should be an IQ test for government service including elected officials. That way she never would have been governor and we would have never heard of her. The world would be a better place.

If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck... Please. Cross-hairs not related to guns? Please. "Reload" doesn't refer to guns? Please. How sad she can't own up to that and just apologize for it. Her justification, rationalization, and distance makes her more responsible.

If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck... Please. Cross-hairs not related to guns? Please. "Reload" doesn't refer to guns? Please. How sad she can't own up to that and just apologize for it. Her justification, rationalization, and distance makes her more responsible.

Palin is absolutely correct in her statement. The left has lived up to what most people think of them already. "Looney Left" (LL) politically and otherwise. Most readers of the Washington Post and the New York Times and the Post and Times Editors and reporters belong to that group and aptly fit the description. LL.

Somehow comments like: "reload", "use 2nd ammendment remedies" and "if ballots don't work, bullets will" and usng gun sites to "target" congressonal distrcts are protected by the first ammendment, but if one uses their voice and is critical of those words, they are labled as "blood libel".

The selective application of the right to free speach... well, thats the literal defnition of hypocrisy.

First it was "they are taking our country", then it was "reverse racism", now it is "liberals need to tone down the hate speach".

Sarah Palin represents a group of pathetic whinning self indulgent hypocrites who complain that they are the victim.

Sarah Palin did not accomplish much when she was office. I think it was about two years as Governor. And, then she was thrust onto the National Spotlight by then Republican President Nominee John McCain.

We have understood for a long time that it was a BAD pick. And, over the years have learned to tolerate her rants and raves.

But right now, it is NOT about her. It is about the tragedy. She needs to pull down the negative crosshairs from her website and finally grow up. She for better or worse was thrust into the National spotlight.

There is absolutely no equivalence from the left to statements like Allen West "Make the democrats afraid to leave their house" or Sharon Angle's "Second Amendment remedies." The right clearly advocates using fear, violence and assassination to gain political power. That's called TERRORISM and that's exactly the tactics that the Nazis used to take over the German political system. These methods must be strongly condemned. Any company advertising on Fox News, Limbaugh, Hannity, Glenn Beck, etc needs to be SHAMED into withdrawing their support of broadcasts that are so harmful to our political discourse.

The DC sniper was not assasinating political leaders, was not politically motivated, and no one ever mentioned his political affiliations because they were not relevant. He was a serial killer shooting random people in parking lots. tim mcviegh, eric rudolph, the ob-gym murderers, Montana Freeman...ALL were politically motivated. We have not seen left wing violence sinc eth early 1970s with the demise of the Weather Underground - and almost everyone who considered themselves "left" at that time denounced that use of violence, not used rhetoric to encourage it.

The shooter was an admitted disciple of nihilism which is defined as follows:

( sometimes initial capital letter ) the principles of a Russian revolutionary group, active in the latter half of the 19th century, holding that existing social and political institutions must be destroyed in order to clear the way for a new state of society and employing extreme measures, including terrorism and assassination.

Palin, Beck, Limbaugh and other anti-government spokespeople certainly have uttered words that are consistent with this definition. It is easy to conclude that Fox News is the propaganda wing of the nihilists, the Tea Party is the political wing, the Koch brothers and other rich anti-government businessmen are the financiers, and the shooter and his kindred spirits are the front line troops in this movement. This is a dangerous time in our nation's history. So far, I have been impressed with Mr. Boehner's behavior and hope it continues. The best thing that Palin and Angle can do is keep their mouths shut and change their behavior. They are playing with fire and are not smart enough to understand that fact.

It is not surprising that the people who spewed references to the "Tree of Liberty", "Don't retreat, reload", "Second Amendment remedies", etc., now insist that these terms were only "metaphors." Well, that distinction is obviously lost on many people including Loughner.

The issue is that these phrases, taken at face value by someone with pre-existing mental conditions can be acted on. The problem too is how many other people are out there who may also not draw the distinction.

Words do matter; our political debate has devolved into personal attacks, sound bites, misleading statements and outright lies. Where is the intelligent debate about different solutions to existing problems?

Seeing her face makes me sick - her words are the product of twisted and sick mind and I'd love to lay a big lugie square between her crossed and vacant eyes - she is a disgusting and reprehensible creature and I hope this is the beginning of the end of Sarah Palin - who never does anything wrong and is always the victim - gimme a break already - why is this BS moron still even relevant?

"Remember: according to our liberal overlords, Timothy McVeigh was a Christian terrorist even though his bombing had nothing to do with the Christian faith, while at the same time the Fort Hood shooter Nidal Hassan was just suffering from a contagious form of PTSD, even though he'd never seen combat and was screaming about the supremacy of Islam while shooting up unarmed U.S. troops."

Last time I looked, we had elected officials, not "liberal overlords." In the case of McVeigh, the point was being made that we shouldn't condemn all Muslims because some Muslims are also terrorists. McVeigh was used to show that we don't blame all Christians just because one terrorist happened to be a Christian. Hassan is a complex case in that he obviously came to accept the radical fundamentalist Muslim viewpoint while at the same time being exposed to possible PTSD contamination as a result of his function as a psychiatrist treating combat soldiers. Psychiatrists, being people, have to guard against internalizing the problems of their patients. His movement toward terrorist action may have been reinforced by his interaction with his patients and their reactions to their experiences.

"Facts are meaningless to these people, including the huge mountain of evidence that Loughner was a deeply disturbed individual on a long descent into madness, and had broadcasted his insanity to friends, fellow students, authorities, and family members for years without anyone intervening."

Is anyone debating this? The point being made is not that there is a direct causal connection between some particularly aggressive forms of commentary and his actions, but rather that a climate of hateful finger-pointing can reinforce a disturbed individual's view that his actions are acceptable and reasonable.

I also think that some liberal commentators are wrong to try to blame Sarah Palin's targets map. Both sides use the term "targeted races" to identify districts where they plan to expend resources to unseat an opponent. However, comments such as "Don't retreat, reload" can be dangerous when heard by an unbalanced person, who may take the words literally.

Palin is absolutely correct in her statement. The left has lived up to what most people think of them already. "Looney Left" (LL) politically and otherwise. Most readers of the Washington Post and the New York Times and the Post and Times Editors and reporters belong to that group and aptly fit the description. LL.

so people who think that continuing to post gunsight graphics on Gifford's district is disrespectful and tacky are "PC braindead Leftists" or their sympathizers? Thank you for making it clear that people who think Obama is a communist are out of touch with reality and lack a sense of proportion. You really do insult the tens of millions of people who died under Stalin when you suggest that Obama is a communist.

ScottinVA:
"Posted by: johnhunsaker4
"If she doesn't think that there is a link between posting a graphic with symbols that look like gunsights over Gifford's district and the recent tragedy, then why did her PAC take that now infamous image down from their website on Saturday?"

For the same reason the Communist Organizer in Chief started wearing a flag on his lapel: public opinion.

I wish she had left it up there, but I suppose she is sensitive to the PC braindead Leftists afet all.

Thanks, Sarah Pooh..Job medium well done. Your speech writers are truly getting better along with your stylist. You go gal. Now that the focus is on you, you want to deflect from the facts that you and your rabid right wing buds are not directly responsible for what that nut did, you are right; however. I am sure you have heard the words Ommission and Commission. Which one applies to you and your outfit? You decide which one is more fitting because if it is left up top us you will not like it.

Your devisives words have caght up to you. Faux(fox) misinformation station cannot save you this time. The other media outlets are on to you and your kind and you all will have to answer for this years from now as you run form the President in 2012. Can you believe that Sarah Pooh is Presidential material? What is America delving into with that possiblity?

The tone that the right wing tea party gang has set have hurt this nation and fed the insatiable appetite of those who thrive on hate. Your posture has provided comfort to those who profits from hate and you along with them will not succeed in the end.

Angle added that political finger-pointing is "an audience-rating game and contradicts the facts as they are known - that the shooter was obsessed with his twisted plans long before the TEA Party movement began."

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A little of topic, but I know I read many comments from people claiming the TEA Party was around for a long time before the President was elected when critized by others for not speaking out during the Bush administration (please no comments on how I am blaming Bush. I am only referencing him to establish a time frame). Now, I am reading (see Angle's comments above) that the TEA Party never existed in 2007 (when Loughner had a run in with Giffords), which is only one year before the 2008 elections. So, which is it? Were the TEA Partiers around long before as they have claimed previously, or was this movement formed as a result of the 2008 elections as others have claimed.

This is what you get when fox noise led by hannity etc. and the likes of the big fat idiot limbaugh. This is what they have caused. It's is their obsession with violence that has brought this about. Murderers.

I don't think she is to blame for this. The blame goes to legislators who cut mental health services and pass lax gun laws.
She can say all she wants about individual responsibility, but what about the little girl and the other 5 who are dead? They didn't do anything wrong. This guy should have been on meds and wasn't.
Giffords was the one who brought up Sarah Palin because she was in one of the crosshairs.

Encouraging hate is wrong and for as much time as she spends saying "What a great country this is" I feel that Sarah Palin hates many groups of Americans, especially what she calls the "left".

So - Sarah Palin can't see how any of her hateful remarks could possibly be misconstrued in this case - why is that a surprise to anyone - she wants all the acclaim but none of the responsiblity or accountability of her statements or actions (Just like being governor) . Was the shooter mentally ill? - absolutlely, was the incident poitically motivated? - probably not - more likely the product of a sick mind. So now that's a health care issue - but of course, under the Republican's plans (or lack thereof) - this 22 year old unemployed nut case living with his parents would not be covered on any insurance plan - so he slips through the cracks. Look, anyway you view this, it points to the failed, hateful practices and self centered greedy policies of Republicans and Tea Party morons. Publshing maps with cross-hairs on politicians districts (not map coordinates - that's another bogus attempt to lie and deny accountability) - issuing statements urging people to reload, to seek 2nd ammendment resolutions - encouraging people to wear side arms or even carry semi-automatics to political rallies - - none of these seem wrong? If you can rationalize these acts as the actions of a healthy mind, as proper and acceptable, then the real problem here would be the people who think this way. People like Sharon Angle and Michele Backman who feel that if their political beliefs aren't put in to effect, then it's okay to carry guns and threaten legally elected, majority elected political figures. The Ron Pauls, Rush Limbaughs, Glenn Becks - this garbage that knowing spreads lies and incites violent responses - no, they have no accountability - they have no reason for shame - the lies, the hatred, the incitement to violence - all this and no one on the right sees any connection? YOU'RE just lying to yourselves, and in your heart - if you have a soul - there must be a glimmer of doubt or you have no soul, or are so incredibly stupid and vacant there's no chance of reaching the tiny shred of human in you anyway.

Blah Blah Blah.... Ms. Palin has never taken responsibility for any of her actions and will continue to spew hate filled language as long as it keeps her employed. She's not a leader and never will be one...so why don't we all just stop listening to her?

In the current situation, a blood libel would be an accusation that Sarah Palin or her associates had recruited Jared Loughner as an assassin, had purchased the gun and ammunition for him, had selected Representative Giffords as a target, had trained Loughner, and had sent him off on a mission to kill Representative Giffords. I haven't seen or heard such allegations from any news media figure or political commentator.

What many people have pointed out, instead, is that Sarah Palin, Sharron Angle, Michele Bachmann and many others, by using violent words and images to foster hatred for their political opponents, have created a poisonous political atmosphere in our country that is ripe for the commission of violence against public figures by disturbed individuals.

Palin didn't simply declare her intention to support Republican candidates -- she announced a "target list" of Democrats, complete with rifle crosshair symbols on a map of their districts, specifically including Representative Giffords by both name and district. Angle suggested that if her supporters weren't successful at the ballot box, they should consider "Second Amendment remedies." Bachmann said that she wanted her supporters to be "armed and dangerous," and that President Obama was "anti-American."

More broadly, a number of Republicans have repeatedly stoked the theme that people who disagree with them about anything are not Americans, are not loyal to their country, and are extremists with radical views. John Kyl, Jim DeMint, Jeb Hensarling, Mike Pence, and others like them have based their careers on vilifying their opponents rather than proposing constructive or workable solutions to our country's problems.

It's long past time for politicians on both sides of the aisle to tone down the overheated rhetoric -- not through any limitation of First Amendment rights, but through their own voluntary self-restraint. Nobody, Republican or Democrat alike, deserves any respect for hinting that their supporters should resort to violence to impose their solutions upon their opponents.

It has been a couple of years now since the 2008 campaign. Sarah Palin, Sharron Angle, Michele Bachman, John Kyl, Jim DeMint, Jeb Hensarling, Mike Pence, and others have had a couple of years to go on public record, using words and phrases of their own choosing, to indicate not only what they think our country's problems are and how they should be addressed, but also how they view people they do not agree with, and how they want their supporters to treat such people. The public records they have created, and they words they have used, speak for themselves.

Americans are entitled to evaluate their public records, and their words, in light of public events, and to draw their own conclusions about the political and moral character of these public figures.

"Recall how the events of 9-11 challenged our values and we had to fight the tendency to trade our freedoms for perceived security. And so it is today."

Yes. I recall how the GOP stood aside and kept their mouths shut while W trampled our individual liberties.

Palin is not a leader and she realizes that. Her power comes from creating non-existent drama (you know, wink wink, telling followers that it's ok to threaten people you disagree with with guns, wink wink). Her immature response to the massacre in Nevada shows that clearly. Now that her silly show got canceled, she's got to brew up some more drama by making statements like this.

Wow, the people on here never cease to amaze me. I think Sarah Palin is an idiot but to blame her at all for some psycho kid is absolutely ridiculous and you should all be ashamed of yourselves. This kid had a letter from the congresswoman from back in 2007 with die written all over it yet Sarah Palin caused this because there were some crosshairs on a picture. I hate to tell you, crosshairs appear on a lot of pictures and people do not get shot because of them. And I bet you are the same people that question why are country is in the state it is! Its because idiots like you go out and vote.

The people who want to say he was a pothead lefty and then mention of the D.C. sniper are the same fools who believe what Palin, Beck and Rush say. The idiot from saturday was a registered independent voter and the d.c. sniper had never voted in his life. Get your facts straight and stop saying things for the sake of speaking.

Wait a minute, why is she reading a prompter? I mean really...after the constant 2 year joke she has been making about the Presidents prompter, now she uses it.

She also needs to tell us whether her staff is lying or not in regards to the "surveyors symbols, not crosshairs" joke. Then again, considering she called them crosshairs in one of her own twitters, I think she needs to try to ignore it and hope it goes away.

Sarah Palin has a map with crosshairs of Democrats on it and one of the members of Congress on the hit list is shot. Yet, she thinks absolutely nothing of it, considering the fact that she was repeatedly WARNED this could lead to violence. Are people really that dense not to make the connection? The woman is a clueless loser who should go back to try to shoot something that is about five feet away in less than five shots.

stunning -- palin adopts an anti-semitic myth to claim her victimhood. i didn't notice in the video (she looks so presidential) if she employed the flag of israeli that she kept in her office as governor. sister sarah, have you no shame?

The part time governor and full time celebrity lady should heed the words of the great liberal leader John Fitzgerald Kennedy who liked to remind people that "when you ride a tiger you too often end up inside." Ms. Palin has been using violence based fear mongering divisive rhetoric for years. She needs to look in the mirror for more than to see if the 3 inches of makeup on her face is painted in the right way.

Sarah grew up in N Idaho, one of the "hickiest" parts of the United States other than Alaska. The woman and her rhetoric obviously does not relate to the "city" folk out there (I have had a place in N Idaho for years but have lived in NYC for +20 - I am fortunate enough to live in both places. BTW, Alaska makes Idaho look like Manhattan). She is a puppet for the true rulers of the nation and unfortunately she and her constituents are too thick to "get it." Why do so many of the masses think they actually are on the same planet as the "Conservative uber rich" who ultimately rule this nation? Are the wealthy anti choice? Are the wealthy more religious? Are the wealthy more fiscally conservative? Are the wealthy more pro gun? What a sick joke. As Winston Churchill said, "the best case against democracy is a five minute conversation with the average voter." This form of government is a complete and utter failure. Time for something new...

Sarah grew up in N Idaho, one of the "hickiest" parts of the United States other than Alaska. The woman and her rhetoric obviously does not relate to the "city" folk out there (I have had a place in N Idaho for years but have lived in NYC for +20 - I am fortunate enough to live in both places. BTW, Alaska makes Idaho look like Manhattan). She is a puppet for the true rulers of the nation and unfortunately she and her constituents are too thick to "get it." Why do so many of the masses think they actually are on the same planet as the "Conservative uber rich" who ultimately rule this nation? Are the wealthy anti choice? Are the wealthy more religious? Are the wealthy more fiscally conservative? Are the wealthy more pro gun? What a sick joke. As Winston Churchill said, "the best case against democracy is a five minute conversation with the average voter." This form of government is a complete and utter failure. Time for something new...

Aren't these the same people who think lyrics to songs incite violence?

As I understand it, Brady's plan would just extend the protection that is given to the President to members of Congress. That law is already upheld by the Constitution.

Say what you mean and mean what you say. If you don't mean to express that people should shoot certain members of Congress, don't put crosshairs on a map of the U.S. over those districts and say that we have to take out the people that you list by name.

And don't use language that "only nutjobs would take seriously" when you're running for elected office.

Sarah grew up in N Idaho, one of the "hickiest" parts of the United States other than Alaska. The woman and her rhetoric obviously does not relate to the "city" folk out there (I have had a place in N Idaho for years but have lived in NYC for +20 - I am fortunate enough to live in both places. BTW, Alaska makes Idaho look like Manhattan). She is a puppet for the true rulers of the nation and unfortunately she and her constituents are too thick to "get it." Why do so many of the masses think they actually are on the same planet as the "Conservative uber rich" who ultimately rule this nation? Are the wealthy anti choice? Are the wealthy more religious? Are the wealthy more fiscally conservative? Are the wealthy more pro gun? What a sick joke. As Winston Churchill said, "the best case against democracy is a five minute conversation with the average voter." This form of government is a complete and utter failure. Time for something new...

"It's interesting. She is probably right, the finger pointing has been over the top. Nevertheless, she still finds a way to make it all about her. There's something about her that is just plain WRONG. "

It was particularly nauseating for palin and angle to wait for limbaugh and beck to defend them, and only then weigh in with defending themselves instead of accepting that what they do and say is being interpreted by some people to go out and kill people. Disgusting people.

The style and context of the language and images that Palin, Beck, Limbaugh, et. al. use to 'reach' their base, is, in style, not much different than Al-Qaeda uses to 'reach' their sympathizers and terror cells in all parts of the world. They paint a picture of an 'evil' American much that the GOP paints a picture of liberals as 'evil' and worthy to be targeted.

You can't make any correlation, WHATSOEVER, between Sarah Palin's rhetoric and this tragedy. WHATSOEVER.

That doesn't mean that Sarah Palin's rhetoric isn't reprehensible. It's wrong to use this tragedy as a jumping off point to call her out on it, but it certainly isn't wrong to call her out on it.

Did she cause the shooting? No. That being said, it sure as hell looks bad that Palin created a map with gun targets over the districts of political enemies, and it speaks volumes about the type of person Sarah Palin is.

So Palin supporters beware: You're supporting a woman who stands for partisanship over people, political points over common ground and common decency.

The DC sniper was exercising free market capitalism. His objective was to make money through killing people. That's the same objective of the military industrial complex and the NRA. Conservative values.

This is one sick lady... She needs medication. What do you mean "duels". Did she want to go back to that? Have she EVER said a "good word" about PRESIDENT Barack Obama or his wife. "Blood libel".. I guess it takes one to know one ..aka "pals around with terrorist". "Just because i gave him the loaded gun when I KNEW he was drunk, does not make me responsible." She supports violence with her words. She broke it, she bought it. Did she have anyting to do with this act - directly, no. Indirectly, she will have some explaining to do. Stop talking about how great this country is.. Look around, we have anger whipped up by you and the people you hang around. Will you be satisfied, when something REALLY REALLY bad happens. Where is your courage. How can people say you (Sarah) can be a leader. You have no courage. You just hide behind FOX News & Facebook.

If it is such a great affront to her and the Tea Party, then why did she remove the gun sites, err, 'surveyors' marks', from her web site? Removing them, while rightfully no admission of guilt for another man's crime, was an admission of going too far with her rhetoric... at least in the aftermath of the tragedy. Now, sensing a backlash against those who blamed the Tea Party for the shooting, she is going on the offensive by framing herself as a victim. This shows a weak-willed public figure bending to the winds of the 24-hour news cycle, but also the worst sort of political opportunism. Appropriating sympathy and victimhood from a tragedy in which many, including a 9-year-old girl, lost their lives, in order to score points as a political martyr is both disgusting and disingenuous. Palin would have us believe that the true victim of this crime, not those dead or critically injured by a madman's bullets, is her.

If, as first her spokeswoman said, and now former Governor Palin confirms, that there is nothing wrong with her map containing the crosshairs metaphor, why then was the site operational an hour before the shooting yet when you try to access it an hour after the shootings it has a server error meaning the page doesn't exist and then shortly thereafter the whole site is taken down.

Former Governor Palin, Fox News pundit and Tweeter extraordinare, if there is nothing wrong with this form of "speech", why remove it? "Man up", as your fellow Tea Partier Angle would say, and show us just how insensitive you really are.

You refer to God and Christ and that you prayed for guidance yet you demonstrate no Christian values in the least to your fellow man. Glad I am not a member of your faith - my Christian denomination, which can trace it's orgin directly back to the Apostles, teaches forgiveness and charity as its rock of faith, not hate and intolerance. You are a sad representative of American and Christian values.

palin is the poison pill andt baggers have swollowed her brand. I was a young woman when President Kennedy, Bobby Kennedy, Martin Luther King Jr. were all assasinated by cowards. I have never seen or heard such vile, vitriolic hatred spewed into the public arena as I have since 9/11. I would not attend a town meeting here in NC because of the threat of firearms from t baggers. When you use your firearms to create fear...you are a cowardly domestic terrorist. 'take responsibility!

palin is the poison pill andt baggers have swollowed her brand. I was a young woman when President Kennedy, Bobby Kennedy, Martin Luther King Jr. were all assasinated by cowards. I have never seen or heard such vile, vitriolic hatred spewed into the public arena as I have since 9/11. I would not attend a town meeting here in NC because of the threat of firearms from t baggers. When you use your firearms to create fear...you are a cowardly domestic terrorist. 'take responsibility!

A Palin aide defended the former governor in an appearance on Alaska radio Sunday, saying that there was "nothing irresponsible" about the images of crosshairs used in a map of the 20 congressional districts targeted by Palin's PAC.

=============

HOLD ON ONE MINUTE. Another Palin aid said they weren't cross hairs at all. The were surveyor map symbols and they weren't even done by the Palin people anyway. It was some graphics company that put those surveyor map symbols in.

It seems they can't get their lies straight.

Glock sales are way up since the shooting. NRA members see how great they are at killing a lot of people in a short period of time. Awesome. I mean squirrels. People don't buy glocks with 31 shot clips to kill people. It's to kill those pesky squirrels.

I believe that first connection between inciting violence and Sarah Palin was made by Gabrielle Giffords herself back in March. Giffords is recovering and Sarah Palin may yet be able to demand apologies from the congresswoman for spreading this “blood label”. BTW, I’m sure that Giffords being Jewish knows all about “blood libel” and will explain herself accordingly.

i would now challenge palin to a duel with pistols, but it wouldn't be fair since her tlc mini-series clearly demonstrated that she is a fraud who never shot a gun before. who knew it was actually simple sarah that was the victim of the shooter. guess it's still all about sarah, all the time.

Sarah reminds me of a small child. Intellectually she is like a small child. She quits easily like a small child. She's quick to blame others, but even when caught with her hand in the cookie jar still denies her own errors.

i would now challenge palin to a duel with pistols, but it wouldn't be fair since her tlc mini-series clearly demonstrated that she is a fraud who never shot a gun before. who knew it was actually simple sarah that was the victim of the shooter. guess it's still all about sarah, all the time.

Blood libel: (also blood accusation[1][2]) refers to a false accusation or claim[3][4][5] that religious minorities, almost always Jews, murder children to use their blood in certain aspects of their religious rituals and holidays.

She specifies a CATHOLIC service. Why? Religion is political nowadays.

Sarah Palin's neighbor of three months on Wasilla's Lake Lucille, author Joe McGinniss said the following of his experience:
"It's just a peculiar thing, but she does, as I found out in May, she presses a button and what comes back is hate," he said. "The people who respond when she complains about something are just so filled with hate. I got some of the ugliest, most vile e-mails directed at me, my grandchildren, my children, my wife - just ugly, ugly stuff."

“The language of Cantwell v. Connecticut, 310 U.S. 296 (1940), is appropriate here. ‘The offense known as breach of the peace embraces a great variety of conduct destroying or menacing public order and tranquility. It includes not only violent acts but acts and words likely to produce violence in others. No one would have the hardihood to suggest that the principle of freedom of speech sanctions incitement to riot or that religious liberty connotes the privilege to exhort others to physical attack upon those belonging to another sect. When clear and present danger of riot, disorder, interference with traffic upon the public streets, or other immediate threat to public safety, peace, or order, appears, the power of the State to prevent or punish is obvious.’

But that's not my main point. I strongly disagree with Brady's proposal if the reports are accurate. I don't think there is anything wrong with strong and even angry language. But Palin and Angle have repeatedly employed violent symbols and/or expressions, and they are morally responsible for contributing to an atmosphere which condones and encourages political violence. I do not know if Loughner was influenced by that or not. But if he wasn't, others on the edge could well be. Open free expression is vital to our democracy and should not be compromised in cases like this. But that does not mean that things that Palin and Angel have done are morally acceptable. The public should firmly reject people like this as viable candidates for political leadership. There are many intelligent and highly qualified conservatives around who do not use violent allusions to convey their messages.
Same with anyone else who flippantly employs violent allusions regardless of their ideological position.

Did the media blame MSNBC for the deaths caused by the DC sniper? He was a a left-winger.

Posted by: Frishoo
**************************************************
Did MSNBC put crosshairs on anybody or say that someone should be "taken out"?

Posted by: lgaide

===============

The DC sniper was exercising free market capitalism. His objective was to make money through killing people. That's the same objective of the military industrial complex and the NRA. Conservative values.

Palin said: "...journalists and pundits should not manufacture a blood libel that serves only to incite the very hatred and violence they purport to condemn."

But it's OK for her to do it? I'm not saying this tragedy is her fault, but give me a break! Her whole modus operandi is hate-filed and violence-laden rhetoric.

Every single person that I have talked to over the last few days believes that the over-heated rhetoric of people like Sara Palin is dangerous. Even if Jared Laughner wasn't directly influenced by her rhetoric, it's only a matter of time before someone like him is.

The only people that I have heard reject this argument are the people that have made a fortune spewing that type of rhetoric, like Sarah Palin, Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck and Bill O'Reilly. The thing that shocks me is how defensive they have all become, which I think indicates that they feel as if their livelihood is being threatened. I would normally think that their defensiveness is an indication of guilty feelings, but I doubt they are capable of such introspection.

Only Sarah Palin could equate her discomfort at recent bad publicity with "blood libel". Only in Sarah-land is it all about her, and only in her unbelievably petty mind does criticism of her amount to the launch of a Holocaust.

Really, the ex-governor should cash in her chips and release her dwindling number of devotees. Her light is dimming, thank God.

rscott251: "The guy was a pot head. And Cali wants to make it legal. A paranioa inducing drug.. OOOHHHH the left is saying its because easy acess to guns, but fact is, he had a drug riddled mind and paranoia. The left better be very careful pointing the finger here. He is a product of THEIR policies."

first of all, guns are legal, pot is not legal. second, plenty of right-leaning libertarians want pot to be legal. lastly, you are pointing your finger - and wagging it too. You have no legitimacy to tell other people to do what you yourself are incapable of doing. Take a look at your own behavior before you start doling out warnings.

Did the media blame MSNBC for the deaths caused by the DC sniper? He was a a left-winger.

Posted by: Frishoo | January 12, 2011 8:39 AM | Report abuse

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John Alan Muhammad was definately NOT a liberal. He was a conservative Muslim who also served in the United States Marine. If anything, he an insane conservative. But, his actions were personal, targeting an ex-spouse, not a political ideal. He wanted his kids back.

It will be difficult for Palin to continue to use the type of language that has made her the heroine of her base. If, as Roger Ailes suggests, she will be forced to compete "intellectually" she will be, to understate the case, more than slightly disadvantaged.

Palin is absolutely right, and I'm not a Palin fan, either.
The liberals and the media blamed Palin immediately after the horrific criminal incident, and that was not only irresponsible but its plain stupid.
Liberals continue to prove to America that they are anything But intellectual.... they're proving to be backward, hateful..
they're "intellectual wanna-be's"
Liberals are the bigots and the haters.

Sarah is being inconsistent, as usual. She berates the press for stating that her rhetoric contributed to the slayings, while in the same breath claims that the press's rhetoric will lead to violence. Well, what is it? Does inflammatory rhetoric contribute to a climate of violence or doesn't it? Come on, Hitler's propaganda minister, Joseph Goebbels, should have left us no doubt that language can be a brutal weapon. The fact that the Nazi's incendiary rhetoric incited violence, such as that of the Kristal Nact, is well documented. I am sure Sarah has heard that the "pen is mightier than the sword." Several years ago during a period of increased gun related killings in Washington, DC, the name of the town's NBA team was changed from the Bullets to the Wizards. It was felt that while no specific crime could be attributed to the team's former name, its allusion to violence didn't help. Can't Sarah be big enough to own up and take the position that in the future due to the possibility that rhetoric alluding to violence might contribute to pushing a mentally unbalanced individual over the edge she will be more temperate in her choice of language? Come on, Sarah, break out the Thesaurus and pick some more erudite and less provocative adjectives.

It’s a shame that our representatives or would-be representatives do not have to take an IQ and general knowledge test so that we could assess whether they possess the smarts to assume political office. A case in point is this media phenom named Sarah Palin who apparently went to college and “earned” a journalism degree. Sarah Palin demonstrates every day that she is a very ignorant woman. This woman emits a lot of hot air which not only contributes to global warming but affirms the old truth that the bigger the mouth the smaller the brain. Using cross-hairs and targets to depict political opponents is what may be expected from some disturbed or ignorant person but not from one who has held elective office and seeks the highest political office in the country.

Feable attempt by former half term governor to get away from her past caustic remarks by pointing her finger right back at her adversaries. I think that the former governor believes what she is doing will ease the doubts in peoples minds about her and it will, with her fanbase but wrapping yourself up in your religion and flag only covers up the superficial. The image of that map with gunsights along with her ballistic rhetoric will be much harder to overcome in the long run.

I quote- "Reload". She can back-peddle all she wants to: she can say that the cross-hairs target icons on her map are butterflies- but the woman, and her bretheran- including Glenn Beck and Jaba the Lindbaugh all used inflammatory, devisive, uncompromising, separative rants that have probably damaged the concept of civilized political discourse in this country for a long time- perhaps forever. There have to be consequences to what people say- and I fear- as do many Americans that in this case the consequences may have caused the deaths of innocent people who were just trying to participate in the political process- the way it's supposed to work. Sarah Palin needs to take a permanent sabbatical and let's all move on to working together to make our government and society better for all of us- so that every person has a place and an opportunity.

Blood libel my a**. The mata hari, hypocrite Sunday Christan, evangelical, opportunists, two bit wh***, with warts, a bigot, racist, white thrash and more then blood at her hands. She, her tea party hog wash with money from the Nazis like Koch brothers, Glen Beck, Limbaugh, Hannity and others, plus all this BS that comes out of her loud mouth is all instigation for these nit wit , misled yahoo red neck to act. Buying all these million of assault weapons, ammo by the truck loads etc. The others of the same malignant narcissism, chronic scape goating, uncorrectable grab bagging are that ugly hag Jan Brewer, the racist, bigot, Gov. of AZ. Michelle Bachmann and other nit wit, second best to child molester politicians who are in their for greed of money, looting plundering. High time the US to indict these evil SOBs for their crimes that are ideologically dividing, polarizing this nation and perpetuating its self destruction from within at the fast track. This conservative republican menace, their perversity need =s to be dealt with ASAP.

I find it revealing that, after the deaths and accusations (which I believe are wrong) there is no real self evaluation in Ms Palin's statements. Upon reflection, might you act in a more thoughtful manner, even if your words and bullseye poster did not influence this particular individual? Might you call for a more respectful, substantive debate about issues on which all sides have a legitimate point of view? I guess Sarah doesn't have the capacity for such deep thought. Or she is just so focused on her political future she cares not. This person is not fit for leadership at the level to which she appears to aspire.

Sarah Palin was wise to think carefully before speaking out on this tragedy because of her reputation of having a mouth not connected to her brain.

But now she has spoken, it comes as no surprise that she offers no insight but steps in line with other conservative pundits - from the most extreme Bill O'Reilly to the supposedly more thoughtful Krauthammer - and spews forth superficial sound bites in an attempt to deflect blame.

But the facts are clear, the past rhetoric of Sharon Aingle, Sarah Palin, Michelle Backmann and other conservatives set the tone for this tragedy. The blood of these victims is on their hands and I for one am not going to ever let them forget that, no matter what attempt they make to shift the blame to others.

In further example of the corrosive behavior of Conservatives is the fact that the funeral of 9 year old girl, a victim of the shooting will be protested by the Westboro Baptist Church of Kansas because the girl is Catholic. And don't tell me that these people are liberal!! What they are is intolerant, small minded, bigoted, lacking in compassion for their fellow man, selfish - all the trademarks of conservatives.

Posted by: johnhunsaker4
"If she doesn't think that there is a link between posting a graphic with symbols that look like gunsights over Gifford's district and the recent tragedy, then why did her PAC take that now infamous image down from their website on Saturday?"

For the same reason the Communist Organizer in Chief started wearing a flag on his lapel: public opinion.

I wish she had left it up there, but I suppose she is sensitive to the PC braindead Leftists afet all.

And now she's going to (rightfully) have the Jews mad at her for misappropriating the historic slur against Jewish people. Her victim mentality always overreaches; she cant seem to complain about her poor, persecuted life making $40 million a year without making wild exaggerations.

To help with your atrocious grasp of history, Sarah, the blood libel resulted in the murder of entire communities of innocent people. People telling you to be more responsible with your language doesn't quite rise to that level of persecution; sorry.

Next she'll say being criticized about her luxury jet travel is like being chained on the Amistad.

I thought Republicans were all about "manning up." What's with the "I have it as hard as the Jews" persecution complex? It's pathetic.

Even after this tragedy, Palin and the Rabid Right just keep repeating the same hateful BS and deny any role in it. They can say what they want but those of us who actually think see their self serving endgame for the pathetic disgusting effort it is.

Sarah Palin was wise to think carefully before speaking out on this tragedy because of her reputation of having a mouth not connected to her brain.

But now she has spoken, it comes as no surprise that she offers no insight but steps in line with other conservative pundits - from the most extreme Bill O'Reilly to the supposedly more thoughtful Krauthammer - and spews forth superficial sound bites in an attempt to deflect blame.

But the facts are clear, the past rhetoric of Sharon Aingle, Sarah Palin, Michelle Backmann and other conservatives set the tone for this tragedy. The blood of these victims is on their hands and I for one am not going to ever let them forget that, no matter what attempt they make to shift the blame to others.

In further example of the corrosive behavior of Conservatives is the fact that the funeral of 9 year old girl, a victim of the shooting will be protested by the Westboro Baptist Church of Kansas because the girl is Catholic. And don't tell me that these people are liberal!! What they are is intolerant, small minded, bigoted, lacking in compassion for their fellow man, selfish - all the trademarks of conservatives.

The NRA is probably thanking Palin profusely at this point for taking the brunt of the public reaction. All of the focus is being directed at Palin instead of the lax regulations that allowed a mentally disturbed, drug user to obtain a semi-automatic weapon and 30 round clips.

Sarah Palin was wise to think carefully before speaking out on this tragedy because of her reputation of having a mouth not connected to her brain.

But now she has spoken, it comes as no surprise that she offers no insight but steps in line with other conservative pundits - from the most extreme Bill O'Reilly to the supposedly more thoughtful Krauthammer - and spews forth superficial sound bites in an attempt to deflect blame.

But the facts are clear, the past rhetoric of Sharon Aingle, Sarah Palin, Michelle Backmann and other conservatives set the tone for this tragedy. The blood of these victims is on their hands and I for one am not going to ever let them forget that, no matter what attempt they make to shift the blame to others.

In further example of the corrosive behavior of Conservatives is the fact that the funeral of 9 year old girl, a victim of the shooting will be protested by the Westboro Baptist Church of Kansas because the girl is Catholic. And don't tell me that these people are liberal!! What they are is intolerant, small minded, bigoted, lacking in compassion for their fellow man, selfish - all the trademarks of conservatives.

There are those who apparently do not know what "blood libel" is - and I would love to know if former governor Palin really knows this too. Christians, particularly in Eastern Europe (Poland, Ukraine, Russia), used to accuse their Jewish communities of using the blood of Christian children to make matzah for the Passover holiday. That is blood libel. There was a particularly eggregious case in late 19th or early 20th century Russia, where a Jewish man was accused of blood libel. The Eastern/Russian Orthodox Church was deeply involved in this case, accusing the man of "blood libel." I believe there was a movie made of this case - either US or British.

Because I don't think Sarah Palin is very bright, intellectually, I won't give her the satisfaction of acknowleding that her often moronic message resonates with any but the most easily led among us; and even among them is not likely to inspire courage to act.

Her Christ is one that I don't want to be anywhere near. It is a form of Christianity with no obligation to live by example and with accountability. It is one that ignores the New Testament for the old. It is one that the Christ of 2000 years ago would not even acknowledge. One that is divorced from any evidence of civility.

Whether this tragedy turns out to be spurned from irresponsible political and media banter or not, the fact that they are perceived to be at least partly responsible for creating the environment wherein such tragedies are incited is enough. The conversation has begun. If there is truth that the viral nature and violent imagery used by politicians and media pundits can be taken as a call to action among the more unbalanced within our society, this should rightly be considered when these figures, Republicans and Democrats, formulate the language they use to move their agenda.

More often than not, it is the GOP that target people rather than policy with their viral language and violent imagery. Though there is evidence that the democrats have done the same, customarily, in a tit for tat response to the GOP. (Two wrongs).

I don't expect the GOP to acknowlede a need to exercise more civility, and I don't expect the Democrats to set back and take attacks from the right. However this is a teachable moment for the American people. You either acknowledge that you are fueled by such imagery or your make it clear to those that you follow that you don't. They target their language to the audience they perceive themselves to be marketing too. The audience controls the message.

The real tragedy is that SP is so stupid I really doubt she can critically assess her own complicity in the divisive rhetoric she spews to the public. That she tries to shift blame to others rather than claiming responsibility for her own actions is just another trick of the liar. Cross hairs are what they are and Palin is a humbug.

UNLESS they are of another era, the public schools near Palin's home would immediately have expelled her from their school system had she been a student who drew crosshairs over someone's home, photo, or even intimated that guns were the solution to losing an election.

So,here we go again,since these shootings happened last week Saturday but to hear our
Obamabot Leftist Liberal News Media tell it
even now sounds like it only happened a few
short seconds ago! How riduculous can WAPO
and all the rest of our lamestream liberal
press get here,as "Tucson Awaits Obama" is
pure nonsense just like all the vicious attacks on Sarah Palin as well.

And so,indeed the Liberal Democrats and leftist news organizations like WAPO,CNN,
MSNBC and all the gun control freaks have found theirselves a New Martyr in form of
wounded Arizona Democrat and former GOP
Congresswoman Giffords to rant and rave over and demand more oppressive new useless
gun controls and immediate confiscation of every legally own,duly registered,law abiding US Citizen firearms as well!

How much lower can WAPO and our liberal nutjobs get here? Oh sorry,I forgot they still have breathessly cover and fawn over
and glorify ever word our Photo Op In Chief
Phony Baloney Kenyan Muslim & Messiah Empty
Suit Comrade Barack Hussein Obama utters and reads from his idiotic teleprompter at
this so-called Memorial Service in Tucson
today,don't they as well now?

Yep Our Dear Old Obama Press Must Freak Out
In Praise For This Newest Obama Photo Op!

Remember: according to our liberal overlords, Timothy McVeigh was a Christian terrorist even though his bombing had nothing to do with the Christian faith, while at the same time the Fort Hood shooter Nidal Hassan was just suffering from a contagious form of PTSD, even though he'd never seen combat and was screaming about the supremacy of Islam while shooting up unarmed U.S. troops. Facts are meaningless to these people, including the huge mountain of evidence that Loughner was a deeply disturbed individual on a long descent into madness, and had broadcasted his insanity to friends, fellow students, authorities, and family members for years without anyone intervening. How liberals can simultaneously claim to be the intelligent, well-educated elites of America and try to shoehorn Loughner into their anti-conservative narrative is beyond me. But even I'm smart enough to see that whenever the next crazy person pops their lid, regardless of what happens the liberals will blame everyone else for it. This is probably why less than 20% of Americans are naive enough to self-identify as liberals anymore. You're embarrassing yourselves.

SP again shows no capacity to reflect on her own behavior but spins and projects blame back upon those who merely point out that she uses weapon-based metaphors ("Reload" etc) over and over again in her presentations. Let us see if she will (has the courage of her convictions to) continue to use such metaphors, running the risk that another deranged person might very precisely name her as his inspiration for violence. And then another and another and another. Her claim of her presentations not being a factor in the AZ rampage require her to continue to use the gun-sight (sic, surveyor's site)image and the reload metaphor, although she already removed the former from her PAC website.

SP again shows no capacity to reflect on her own behavior but spins and projects blame back upon those who merely point out that she uses weapon-based metaphors ("Reload" etc) over and over again in her presentations. Let us see if she will (has the courage of her convictions to) continue to use such metaphors, running the risk that another deranged person might very precisely name her as his inspiration for violence. And then another and another and another. Her claim of her presentations not being a factor in the AZ rampage require her to continue to use the gun-sight (sic, surveyor's site)image and the reload metaphor, although she already removed the former from her PAC website.

There is an opening page message at RA that I thought was dedicated to the NYT but I can see now that it has the name of many media organizations and pundits - including the WP. It is called "The Hate Speakers Condemn Hate Speech with Hate Speech." It is short and sweet but it says it better than them or Palin. They would like their comment at http://www.robbingamerica.com
No need to search, their picture is at the top of the page.

Six months ago, police in California pulled over a truck that turned out to contain a rifle, a handgun, a shotgun and body armor. Police learned from the driver — sometime after he opened fire on them — that he was heading for San Francisco, where he planned to kill people at the Tides Foundation. You’ve probably never heard of the Tides Foundation — unless you watch Glenn Beck, who had mentioned it more than two dozen times in the preceding six months, depicting it as part of a communist plot to “infiltrate” our society and seize control of big business.

There is an opening page message at RA that I thought was dedicated to the NYT but I can see now that it has the name of many media organizations and pundits - including the WP. It is called "The Hate Speakers Condemn Hate Speech with Hate Speech." It is short and sweet but it says it better than them or Palin. They would like their comment at http://www.robbingamerica.com
No need to search, their picture is at the top of the page.

@rscott251
Actually it's Libertarians, mostly in the Republican party, who have been the most vigorous in supporting a relaxation of penalties for drug possession. William F. Buckley, Jr. himself was a leader in this. In one of the largest constituencies of the Democratic Party, African-Americans, you will not find significant support for weakening drug laws.

Of course all of this is irrelevant to the matter at hand, but let's keep our facts straight.

I'll bet Senator John McCain feels very, very sorry about his choice of a couple of years ago. I have never seen a more unworthy candidate for any office getting so much press. Her response is only focused on herself, - not presidential, not that of a leader.

We should all (including me) stop posting any comments on her and not contribute to her getting any more publicity!

Welll I can see the leftie screamers are out in full force today. Say what you want about SP but...she's 100% right on this one. The 'blown out of proportion' factor from the left on this is truly apalling...there's even a Senator using the blood libel to raise funds. Apalling.

Clearly Angle and Palin were not responsible for the actions of this madman--by all accounts, the shooter never even heard of either thme. If anything, Sarah should be encouraged to be even more snarky, hateful and vindictive in their tweets and utterances. It is a matter of constitiutional rights.

The phrase "rabble rouser" seems appropriate for individuals whose words or gun-sighted maps induce feelings of anger and hostility. Quite probably, neither Glen Beck nor Sarah Palin talked personally with Jared Loughner, but amid his fantasies and disordered life, he may well have been influenced by rousers of rabble, by prominent spokespersons - whether on talk radio or television - individuals who delight in vehemently vitriolic rhetoric.

rscott251 wrote:
The guy was a pot head. And Cali wants to make it legal. A paranioa inducing drug..
--------------------------------------------

Probably 30% of the U.S. population are potheads, but they are not going out shooting people. And, get your facts straight before saying it is the left that wants legalization. Libertarians, like Ron and Rand Paul are the biggest proponents of legalization. Probably 90% of the people that voted for Ron Paul during his 1988 run for president on the Libertarian ticket were pot heads. There are also as many mainstream Republicans calling for decriminalization of pot as there are Democrats.

reading this typical self-pitying drivel offered up by madam palin and thinking of representative giffords fighting for her life, i can't help but remember the old song where it was said that it is always, "... the good who die young." representative giffords was the kind of public servant we should all admire. palin? she truly makes me fear for the future of my country.

Sarah has pushed her "macho" gun hunting image to her advantage since she got on the public scene. Wether here crosshair adds had any affect on this nut case is only part of the problem. They are innapropriate when you are campaigning for political office.

Lock and load, reload, bullets over ballots, what the hell kind of talk is that for American politics?

Now that she is in the spot light, her spokesperson trying to weasel out with stating they were surveyors sights, shows more of the hypocrisy involved. I will use the gun images as a long as they help me, then deny I did if it's bad press.

Sarah is a user who is having her fifteen minutes of fame and making millions on it.

I really wonder if all this hate and crap rhetoric from some on the right would be even happening if Obama were White?

To read Sharon Angle's comments, one would think that she has never been involved in political finger pointing. It is such a sad tragedy when those who abuse political speech the most are the ones with the loudest complaints about the supposed abuse of others. In the case of Angle and Palin, no news from them would have been the better course. Now both have opened their mouths and removd all doubt about their insensitivity to their own utterances. We all recognnize that yelling "fire" in a packed theater when no fire exists is not protected speech.

Blood Libel:Blood libel (also blood accusation[1][2]) refers to a false accusation or claim[3][4][5] that religious minorities, almost always Jews, murder children to use their blood in certain aspects of their religious rituals and holidays.[1][2][6] Historically, these claims have–alongside those of well poisoning and host desecration–been a major theme in European persecution of Jews

When the lefty libs respond to Obama's "knife..gun" remarks, they will have shown fair and balanced criticism of any heated rhetoric. Until then, lefty libs criticism of only the right wing is to be disregarded. The shooter was a left wing pot smoker...sorry for that inconvenient truth.

It took her three days to come up with this crap? Like I said before, shes a chicken s**t liar. She should have made a statement Saturday, not this rambling, word salad, nonsensical diatribe of grade A moose crap. She's a coward, and a manipulator; would that be the same Reagan you ridiculed for Bedtime for Bonzo? The congresswoman mentioned your monkey a** by name. Man up.

Listen to yourselves. In your rush to condemn Sarah Palin, you commit the same offense you accuse her of committing. If I was inclined to harm someone, statements like "poor excuse for a human being" would sound like encouragement.

Pretty bad that national leaders have to hide behind the first amendment because people find their speech so reprehensible. The first amendment guarantees your right to say disgusting things; it doesn't absolve you of the responsibility to act like an adult.

Every leader has a choice of whether to conduct themselves like a mature adult with genuine concern for their country, or whether to use the emotionally loaded language of hatred, violence, and enmity. These people made a choice, and are rightfully feeling the heat for it. There is no constitutional protection from the consequences of your choices.

Palin and Angle have proven to be what we all along knew them to be: Pathetic polotitians who will do anything to win electiona or make money. I don't think anyone in the media or any politician has said that this Arizona incident was necessarily incited by Palin or Angle. The only argument that is being made is that the violent rhetoric that is our there has a potential for more voilence and that there is ample evidence of violence directed at their opponents that have occured: breaking into congressmen and senators offices, threatening mail and calls etc. The arguement being made is that all which includes democracts and republic should refrain from demonizing their opponents and voicing threats of voilence against their opponents. This I suppose to not something Palin or Angle or the Tea party would understand.

Right, Sarah. Your vile, acid tongued, hate spewing vitriol has had absolutely nothing to do with this. Don't show any remorse whatsoever or take any responsibility for you and your ilk clearly inciting violence through your gun graphics and gun metaphor laced speeches.
You just can't bring yourself to say "Gee, I'm sorry for my hateful diatribes and military metaphors--I'll tone it down and be more compassionate and inclusive instead of inciteful, hateful and divisive."
You Are Pathetic.

Sarah Palin needs to just shut up. She is the most disrepectful person on the face of this planet. It's time for the media to turn their attention away from her. Please stop giving her the spotlight. The media made her the star, and you really didn't need to do that. Mostly, because she's an idiot. But really, who cares what she says. It is meaningless. She is the cause of the shootings in Arizona. She and her buddies Rush and Glenn Beck. So please, Washington Post, stop repeating what they say.

You can be sure that if Dems posted a picture of Palin in the crosshairs, you would never hear the end of it from her, O'reilly, Limbaugh, and all the rest who helped foster this intolerant, mean and venomous political environment.

Frishoo - if you can demonstrate that MSNBC published maps showing crosshairs on gas stations, Home Depots, etc., and if you can show that MSNBC made a point of implying that people at those places were somehow not 'Real Americans', then you might have a valid complaint. In the absence of such evidence, however, your comparison makes no sense whatsoever.

Sarah gal, you live by the sword you have to die by the sword, an old saying goes. Why do you deprive people expressing their views about the event while giving yourself all the rights to say anything you want? What I think is a blood label, what you think is protected by the first amendment, eh???? Have some decency for a change and watch your mouth. The tongue has no bones but bones breaks, another old saying goes.

The guy was a pot head. And Cali wants to make it legal. A paranioa inducing drug.. OOOHHHH the left is saying its because easy acess to guns, but fact is, he had a drug riddled mind and paranoia. The left better be very careful pointing the finger here. He is a product of THEIR policies.

Blood libel....huh. Old Shotgun Sarah is feeling the heat...and the guilt. Sure this shooter was wacko, but that is the point. You don't use "aim and reload" rhetoric and crosshairs. Shotgun Sarah planted the seed and the wacko acted. Sure her rhetoric was only meant to appeal to conservative gun owners. But in a country that will give a gun to anyone, including psychopaths, it was bound to result in the type of event that happened last Saturday. Unfortunately, Palin is too immature to get this, and also too immature to accept and admit that her rhetoric likely gave this guy the nudge he needed to commit this atrocity.

Once again she cannot fully comprehend the situation, lays blame, and uses snark to criticize. Lady you surely are a class act for the lowest life forms found on our planet. Can't wait for everyone to dissect your response as it will be the final hand full of dirt on your grave. Your cluelessness is by far your first strong point. Your shallow and insincere compassion comes in a very close second.

Palin's values, the values that she wants to fight to retain, are not necessarily the values that many of us want in our public discourse. Palin has not been faulted for the senseless salughter in Arizona. What has been stated is the possibility of an impact on a deranged mind by the poisoned atmosphere of politics in our country today, an atmosphere that Palin has fostered with her caustic, in-your-face demonization of the opposition.

Palin has proved yet again how wrong she is for public office in our land. The fact that she quit the governor's job speaks volumns. Why does this woman stay in the news?

Most political leaders can look good during the ebb and flow of a normal crisis. However, great leaders emerge during national emergences and times of great stress. Our nation is being sorely tested by a Great Recession. At this time, it is not clear that we have a great leader at the national level. President Obama's has been handicapped by his political inexperience. He may yet emerge as a great leader. The elected Republicans have certainly not been inspirational. They've been like propaganda mechanics doing their best to damage Obama at the expense of the nation's business.

Now comes this great tragedy in Arizona.

Representative Gabrielle Giffords is struggling with an almost fatal brain gunshot wound. Six people are dead and more than a dozen wounded from an attack lasting a few minutes at a Safeway grocery store in Tucson. This heinous act was perpetrated by the apparently mentally ill Jared Loughner with his Glock 19 and his extended 30-bullet clip.

Republican and Democratic leaders are shocked, appalled, and grief stricken by this insane act of violence.

What are the national leaders doing? President and Michele Obama have been somber and are acting with dignity. President Obama, a moderate man of mostly measured tones, will probably do very well as President during and after this great tragedy.

However, eventually, real leaders will address these very contentious issues: proper management of gun ownership, when and where a person can carry lethal weapons, and vitriolic political discourse.

Our media is going to be sorely tested. Will they continue the false equivalence of the political vitriol being at the same intensity and scope on the Right and Left? If they do, then as individuals and institutions they will fail.

Many leaders on the Left are calling for a toning down of the political rhetoric. A few on the Right, without admitting they've been the vitriolic leaders, are calling for more measured political discourse. Bill Clinton is doing a masterful job. There are elected Democrats meeting this challenge such as Barbara Boxer, Nancy Pelosi, and James Clyburn. However, on the Right there has been a strange quietness and when the leaders speak out, they are generally defensive.

Before redemption comes contrition. So far, only one Republican leader is meeting this standard: Joe Scarborough. He is to be commended for addressing the political vitriol. It remains to be seen whether or not other Republican leaders follow his courageous lead.

If she doesn't think that there is a link between posting a graphic with symbols that look like gunsights over Gifford's district and the recent tragedy, then why did her PAC take that now infamous image down from their website on Saturday?

Oh please, always playing the victim, right Saint Sarah? And Angle, too!

Both of them - Dumb and Dumber.

How about recognizing - at the very least - that your behavior in releasing that poster with bulleyes was irresponsible? How about acknowledging that use violent imagery in your comments, Web sites and TV appearances is irresponsible in a democracy?

This just in: the WaPo blames Sarah Palin for today's snowstorm. Her hate speech against global warming caused a predictable violent response from Goddess Gaeia. We must repeal the Bill of Rights before it's too late!

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